Hit The Ground Running
by Tozette
Summary: The Horcrux in Harry's head wakes up and begins talking to Harry long before he's ever heard the name Voldemort. Philosopher's Stone AU. Warnings for some instances of child abuse. No pairings.
1. Chapter 1

_Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy. - _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Ch. 2

Harry lay in his dark cupboard for a very long time. When he was sure the Dursleys were all asleep, he tried the door of his cupboard, but it was locked tightly so he sat back onto his cot and waited in the dark, hungry and sleepless. He wasn't sure how long it would be before he'd be let out again. Harry had never been accused of setting a wild animal on his cousin before. It seemed like it could take a very long time.

He was right.

The following days were a blur of gnawing hunger and restlessness. Aunt Petunia let him out morning and night to use the lavatory, but she locked him back inside his cupboard again right after. Harry knew summer break hadn't quite started when he was first locked in. He lost track of time quickly, but the fourth day he woke to the rap of Aunt Petunia's bony knuckles on the cupboard door, he knew he was missing school.

"Up, up! Come on," Aunt Petunia gave him a quick push to get him moving toward the bathroom.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," said Harry automatically, stumbling toward the bathroom. The tiles were cold under his bare feet in the morning. Harry was very thirsty, so he used his morning and night bathroom trips to drink as much water from the tap as he could - until he was either sick or bloated with it, or Aunt Petunia hammered on the door and demanded he get out.

When he returned, inevitably, to his cramped and dark closet, Harry usually tried to go back to sleep. It had been difficult the first few days, bored and restless as he was, but Uncle Vernon's 'no meals' ruling meant he had less and less energy and it was becoming easier to pass the time in a doze.

Now even just getting up made his head spin wildly.

It was almost a nice feeling, sinking down into his little cot feeling dizzy and stupid with weakness paralysing his limbs. He blinked once, twice, and relaxed into it, aware of himself only in a hazy and distant way.

Harry day-dreamed of a tall, narrow building. It was all black and white, even the sky and the pavement, and the sign outside was rusty and missing some letters. Inside was full of endless steep stairways, narrow corridors and cold overhead lights that reflected brightly from the black brick walls. At first Harry thought it was a prison, it was so cold and miserable, but as he took better notice, he realised it was an orphanage.

The shadow of a terrible premonition fell over Harry. Hadn't Uncle Vernon threatened him with this exact fate hundreds of times? _Any more funny business and we'll pack you off to the orphanage!_

Harry thought of the snake's soft farewell hiss:_ Thanksss, amigo_. A cool, writhing sickness settled into his gut.

Harry dragged his mind away from the thought of that awful place. He rolled over and put his face in the sheets instead.

He slept until the next knock on his door.

"Get up!" Aunt Petunia snapped through the cupboard door. The tumblers clicked. Harry breathed a huge sigh and got to his feet, slowly and dizzily.

Petunia herded him to the bathroom again, then marched him outside where the sun was already shining brightly and, with a dire look of warning, instructed him to start on the garden.

At first the sunlight was a very welcome thing: Harry had been alone in the dark for too long, and his skin had missed it. But after weeding and pruning and mowing, the sun was high and the day was hot. Waiting out the midday heat in the shade would only get him a sharp clip over the ears, so Harry's only consolation was that he could drink from the hose as often as he wanted. He was back in the cupboard before Uncle Vernon returned home.

He fell asleep with his glasses still on and woke when he rolled over and crushed them into his face. It must have been very late, because he could hear his aunt and uncle engaged in a hissed conversation near the stairs. He could only catch snippets:

"- not even _ours_ -"

"- dangerous nonsense -"

"-stamp it _out of him_!" This last ominous growl was Uncle Vernon.

Harry pulled his glasses off and rolled over. He pulled his covers over his head. It muffled most of the sound and he pretended that he couldn't feel the dark weight of the stairs and settling old house above him.

He dreamed, prophetically, of the orphanage: tall, cold; empty. There seemed to be no children, no matron, nobody at all: just endless gleaming walls and the brightness of bleak overhead lights. He wandered up the stairs and down the narrow corridors over and over, but every door he tried seemed to be locked, and he could find no way out.

Eventually, he stumbled upon the only unlocked door.

The room behind it was cramped, with the same gleaming bricks and harsh lights. There was a steel framed bed, a bare wooden desk and a closet. Outside one narrow, grimy window, it rained and rained. The street below was grim and grey and indistinct.

"You're back again," said a voice that surprised Harry so badly he nearly leapt out of his skin.

He turned to the voice and saw a boy about five or six years older than him. The boy was dark haired and pale skinned just like Harry, but a great deal taller. He was thin, quiet and looked very serious. "Erm," said Harry uncertainly. "Hello."

The boy didn't say anything for a long few seconds. "What are you doing here?" he asked finally.

"I don't know," said Harry, looking around at the hard, cold place in which he'd found himself. The boy in front of him seemed a bit hard, too. "Do you live here?" Harry asked.

They boy ignored his question. He got up from the empty desk and paced a tight circle around Harry, inspecting him from all angles. "You can't have come here by accident," he said in a suspicious voice.

"Er." Harry turned to follow the other boy's movements with his eyes. He didn't feel very comfortable with the teenager circling him like that, but he didn't feel like he was in trouble, either. The boy didn't make him feel like Dudley or Uncle Vernon. "I don't know how I got here," he said firmly, "but I'd be happy to leave you alone if you just tell me how to get back."

The boy gave him a speculative look. He had hard eyes, like looking into coloured glass. "Tell me," he said cautiously. "Where were you before you came here, Harry Potter?"

Harry wasn't sure how the other boy knew his name, but he supposed if this was a dream then that sort of thing was normal. "I was in my cupboard," he said.

"Your cupboard," repeated the boy.

Harry nodded. He shifted uncomfortably, unwilling to say more, but the other boy's glass-hard gaze wasn't going anywhere until he answered. "It's where I sleep," he explained.

A lot of the suspicion left the boy's face. He stopped pacing. "Lily and James Potter were killed," he mused reflectively, "and now their son sleeps in a cupboard. How did that happen?" His gaze sharpened, narrowed.

"They died in a car crash," said Harry in a small voice.

"A _car crash_." For some reason, the boy seemed to find this funny. Harry swallowed, feeling a bit sick. "You live with muggles?"

He lived with _what_? "I don't know. I'm sorry for interrupting you. I just want to get back. Can you tell me how?"

There was a long, silent pause. "Answer my questions, and I'll take you back," the boy decided finally. "I want to know how you got here. Are you sick?"

Harry opened his mouth to say 'no,' but he wasn't really sure. Did it count as being sick if you didn't eat? He frowned.

"Injured? Hurt?" the boy settled back into the chair. Harry felt immediately more comfortable with him there. "Were you scared or angry?"

Harry swallowed. He didn't know how to answer those questions. If Uncle Vernon found out he'd said something to anybody - he shook his head hard. "I didn't do any funny business," he said.

"Of course not," agreed the other boy blithely. "Calm down, Harry," he said in a very soothing voice. "Here, take my hand. Good. I want you to tell me exactly what the inside of your cupboard looks like. Concentrate on how your body feels. Think about the walls, about the things touching your skin."

Harry concentrated very hard on the idea of his cupboard: its warm darkness, its scuttling spiders and cramped space, the dust that trickled from the stairs when Dudley thundered down of a morning, the sharp rap of Aunt Petunia's knuckles against the door...

He opened his eyes.

It was dark.

Gingerly, he reached out with one hand until he touched the familiar wall of his cupboard, cool and slightly damp. Then he sighed and fell back into the bed. He was back in his cupboard. Harry yawned hugely, rolled over, and fell back to sleep.

_Curious_, murmured a voice, soft and hissing in the back of his mind.

When Aunt Petunia got him up to use the lavatory the next morning, Harry could feel something different. He was still sick and dizzy, still thirsty, still photosensitive and cold, and definitely still losing weight rapidly, but his head felt different. He considered this while drinking from the tap.

All he could conjecture, while Petunia was herding him back into the cupboard, was that the weird dream he'd had last night had made him feel weird.

He wondered, idly, if they were going to send him to that orphanage.

The tumblers in the lock fell into place again, and Harry knew he wouldn't be leaving until Uncle Vernon came home from work.

_Why are you locked in the cupboard?_ asked a soft voice, making Harry jump and look wildly around.

There wasn't anybody in the cupboard with him. Harry swallowed hard. "Where are you?"

_You can't see me_, responded the voice impatiently. _Why are you locked in the cupboard_?

"I sort of... set a snake on my cousin Dudley," he said miserably. It sounded awful when he said it aloud. No wonder they'd locked him away like this. Even if Dudley had probably deserved it.

Harry was hit with the oddest flood of amusement. The voice laughed and laughed. The sound filled Harry's skull.

"Are you inside my head?" he asked in a very small voice.

The laughter slowed. Still horribly amused, the voice said one word: _Yes_.

Harry fell silent after that. He knew what happened to people who heard voices. They were sent to places worse than the orphanage. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon definitely wouldn't take care of him if he was crazy.

The voice leapt upon this opportunity. _That's why you mustn't tell them_.

This made very good sense to Harry. He nodded his head.

The voice was full of questions. Did he remember his parents? Were the Dursleys his only family? Was Harry eleven yet? Did he have any memories of the car crash?

It was a novelty to Harry to have somebody so interested in him, and he told the voice everything he could. The voice was especially intent upon this last question, and uttered the words 'car crash' with such irony that even Harry's ten year old understanding couldn't miss it.

"Did you know my parents?" he asked.

There was a long, considering pause. _Yes_, said the voice finally._ But not very well._

"So... you must have been outside me, once," Harry said.

_I was_, agreed the voice. _I'm part of a person_.

"Part of a person?" How could you be _part_ of a person? In Harry's experience, limited to Dudley's choice of television programs, people who were cut into pieces _died_.

The voice seemed to pick up on his image of television programs. There was a startled pause, and then and Harry had a confused flash of a memory that definitely was not his own: boys jostling for view of a tiny screen in some crowded city hall, black and white, grainy reception of women singing in long skirts and tightly-pinned hair on a stage, bright lights.

Harry wasn't sure what to make of this. It didn't seem like a very good television. Experimentally, he thought of the last time he'd seen the television in Dudley's room: a huge CRT screen, bright flashing colours streaming Dudley's gargantuan silhouette onto the wall.

The voice recoiled. _Muggles_, it said, injecting the word with a powerful loathing.

Harry still didn't know what that word meant, but he was more interested right now in this strange business of being part of a person. "How did you get cut in half? Are you a ghost?" he asked.

_No_, said the voice finally. _What year is it?_

Harry had to think about that. "Nineteen nintey-one," he said finally. "I'll be eleven soon," he said, remembering the earlier questions.

There was a pause. _How soon?_

Harry had been in the cupboard for too many days to remember precisely how many. He explained this.

The voice hissed impatiently. It sounded a bit like the hiss of the boa in the zoo. The comparison did not seem to bother the voice; if anything he seemed pleased by it.

_You'll be getting your letter soon_, mused the voice.

"What letter?" Harry wondered, but the voice didn't answer. He had the distinct sense of rummaging, and occasionally one of his own memories would come to him, random and unbidden: dreams of riding a loud motorbike through the sky, a face with straight black hair and a quick smile, a blinding flash of green light, a woman with red hair. These were all strange and fuzzy, and seemed very old.

"Hey," Harry tried again, after a few moments, "What letter?"

But no answer was forthcoming, and while the voice made its presence known rifling through his memories, it remained silent for the rest of the day.

Eventually his aunt and uncle let Harry out of the cupboard, by which time the summer holidays had well and truly started. Dudley had already broken or abandoned most of his birthday gifts, and was spending most of the summer bullying other neighbourhood children with his friends.

Harry, on the other hand, was put to work: mopping, gardening, scrubbing floors and windows. There was no end to the tasks Aunt Petunia could think up for him to undertake, and the beginning of the new school year in September shone like a beacon to him.

"I won't be going to school with Dudley," he explained to the voice while he was watering plants in the hot sun. Dudley was going to an expensive private school, and Harry would attend the local public high school. "He won't have a chance to say things about me to the kids at Stonewall." To tell the other kids Harry was a freak.

_I see_, said the voice. And then, after a considering pause, _You're not going to Stonewall. You're going to Hogwarts_.

Harry was silent. He didn't want to contradict the voice, but he was pretty sure he was going to Stonewall.

The voice heaved a sigh. There was a bit of that uncomfortable rummaging in Harry's mind, and then it threw up a memory for him, of running away from Dudley's gang and ending up on the roof. Then another, of his Aunt's dismay at his hair growing back overnight. Then, much more recently, the hiss of the snake at the zoo: _Thanksss, amigo_.

"So?" Harry muttered mutinously. He knew those things didn't happen to other people. Harry didn't need the voices in his head telling him he was a freak, too!

_You're not a freak_, it said impatiently. _You're special. You're better than they are._

Harry thought that if he was so much better than the Dursleys, they wouldn't have locked him in a cupboard off and on for the last ten years.

The voice made a noise, a kind of growling wish for patience that shook the walls of Harry's skull and made his scar ache. _You're a wizard. Only a half-blood, but still a __**wizard**__. Your parents were magic. __**You're**__ magic._

Harry wasn't sure about that. "If they were magic," he said slowly, "how did they die in a car crash?"

The voice was silent for a long moment on this point. Then, finally, it said,_ I suppose you'll have to find out eventually. They didn't die in a car crash._

"Boy!" yelled Petunia from the window, and with her angry gesture Harry realised he was on the verge of flooding her flower beds.

He quickly turned the hose off and went to put everything back in the shed. Inside the cool darkness of the Dursleys shed, he said, "Do you know how they died?"

_Me_. Said the voice. _I killed them._

Harry froze. He didn't want to believe it, but a magical curse seemed to explain his hazy memories of that night a great deal better. "You did?"

The voice said nothing, and all Harry could feel from it was a kind of distant coolness.

He licked his lips, setting his gardening tools down gently. "It was... it was an accident, though, right?"

_No_, said the voice, unapologetic.

Harry felt like he was going to cry.

The voice was totally silent, and after a few gulping, gasping sobs, Harry pulled himself together. He couldn't let Aunt Petunia see him crying, or he'd get the belt for sure.

Harry went mechanically through his chores that day, and didn't talk to the voice in his head. The voice didn't talk to him, either. They coexisted in uncertain silence, which Harry did not break until he was locked back in his cupboard for the night.

"Why did you kill them?" he asked finally. He didn't have a lot of love for the parents he could barely remember, but the knowledge that he might never have been left with the Dursleys made him feel bitter and resentful

The voice was there, he could feel it paying attention in his head, but it didn't answer him for a few moments. _We were at war_, it said finally. _We were on different sides._

A war. Harry frowned.

_Do you know what a prophecy is?_

Harry scrunched up his face. He knew, sort of. "It's when somebody tells the future?"

_I suppose that's enough for a ten year old to be going on with_, said the voice, snorting softly. _There is a whole branch of magic dedicated to telling the future, _it told him_. There was a prophecy that said your parents, their ...family, would kill me if I didn't kill them first._

Harry thought about that. He turned the idea over in his head. He knew that when people killed each other on the news, it was always okay if it was in self-defence.

Harry's scar hurt. He rubbed his forehead. "Did you have to let them leave me with the Dursleys?" he asked plaintively.

He felt a ripple of amusement from the voice. He sighed. "What were you fighting about, anyway?"

_Politics_, said the voice drily. Harry scrunched up his nose. _Muggles_, the voice added thoughtfully._ Old magic. How much control the Ministry of Magic should have over the wizards and witches in Great Britain._

That sounded pretty complicated to Harry. He thought about it. "What about the muggles?" The voice had explained what this word meant, and Harry liked the way it sounded: fat and undignified, like his relatives.

_I don't think muggles should be in charge of wizards. I don't think wizards should ever be raised without knowledge of their own world. Sometimes, for varying reasons, muggles have to learn about the Wizarding World - your world. They have magical children, or they live with a witch or wizard_. The voice didn't sound very happy about this at all, and Harry only had to remember that he was laying locked in a cupboard to figure out why.

_Exactly_, said the voice, pleased and surprised at his swift understanding. _Muggles are weak and powerless, and they have a weak understanding to match. You are an excellent example_, he added thoughtfully, _of why we need to maintain much better control over these muggles._

Harry was silent. He wasn't sure what he could say to that. Somewhere outside his cupboard, a clock was ticking in the silent house.

_This is complicated_, he said then. _Are you sure you want me to keep going?_

Harry nodded vehemently. "If I'm going to be a wizard," he whispered, "I think I should know."

_A very long time ago, a group of witches and wizards got together and created what we now call the Ministry of Magic. Its original purpose was to maintain the International Statute of Secrecy._

"What's that?"

_It's an agreement between wizards and witches across the world to keep our magic secret from the muggles. Muggles in the middle ages used to know about us. Have you heard of the Spanish Inquisition?_

Harry swallowed. "A little," he said, but what he'd heard was enough.

_The history books they will give you at school will tell you that a witch or wizard could perform a fire proofing charm, or mix a potion, and avoid being burned alive. Some of them_, said the voice with emphasis,_ could. Tell me, do you know any fire proofing charms yet?_

Harry shook his head.

_Neither did most of the magical children in the middle ages, _the voice continued._ Neither do many adult wizards. There have always been many, many more muggles than magical folk, and it can be dangerous for us if they find out - and it also scares them to know how much more powerful we are_, he added in a sneer. _We risk our magic by breeding with them, and we risk our whole community by letting them know we even exist._

Harry nodded. He could see that, if he thought about it, in Uncle Vernon's endless admonishments: "No funny business!"

He hadn't realised before how much he scared his relatives.

_Yes_, said the voice. _Much of the muggles' history has been corrupted, both intentionally and unintentionally, to make witchcraft seem like a quaint old superstition._

"And now they don't believe in magic at all," said Harry, marvelling at the genius of it. "So people are doing magic right under their noses and - and-"

_Yes_.

"That's brilliant."

_Yes_, agreed the voice again. Harry got a vague idea that it was smiling. He liked that. _We created the Ministry of Magic for the protection of the International Statute of Secrecy. However, their purpose has been... changed._

"What do they do now?"

_A lot of things. They decided, for various reasons, good and bad, that certain types of magic were worse than others, and now they decide what kinds of magic a wizard can perform. They decide what you get taught in school. They catch and judge criminals. They decide what's criminal._

"It sounds like they do a lot. It must be a lot of work."

_A lot of busywork, yes,_ agreed the voice drily. _Part of why we were fighting was that I, and people like me, don't believe that this is the role of the Ministry of Magic. Who are they to tell us what kind of magic we can practice?_

Harry frowned. "I don't know," he said, but he wasn't sure if the question really needed a response.

_They make muggles seem childish and harmless, and they ban useful magic from witches and wizards. And then when muggles do learn of our world, when they don't bother to learn about our traditions or our culture - when they make demands - when they complain that our rituals seem strange to them - when they say this is immoral or that seems wrong_ - he sounded agitated and out of breath, and Harry's head throbbed gently in time with his words - _the Ministry races to abase itself before them. They enforce their insanity against our people. They can't give in fast enough. _

"Why?" Harry asked, pressing the heel of his hand to his closed eyes.

_Because any one of those muggles could expose us. So the Ministry scampers like frightened rats under the floorboards, cowers for their approval - and slights the very people it should protect. We, who are naturally superior beings!_ The voice thundered now. Its rage seemed to vibrate down his bones and burn through his skull.

It hurt. "Are you angry with me?" Harry asked in a weak voice.

_No_, he said, and somehow Harry wasn't sure he was telling the truth. But the pain stopped abruptly. _I'm angry for you._

* * *

**A brief** **reminder to my lovely readers**: this is a fun, self-indulgent story for me. I'm writing it for free (obviously, because it is fanfiction), and I'm doing it for amusement. I know some of you take your fanfic pretty bloody seriously, but I'd strongly advise against it in this case. Despite serious moments, this is not a fanfic meant to be read with the gravitas and sobriety of a sermon. So sit back and chillax a little. (This note was added as of posting chapter 15.)


	2. Chapter 2

It was the very next day that saw the arrival of the letter Harry had been told about.

_Don't let them see it_, said the voice._ Read it when we're alone_. So Harry shoved the letter down his pants. Dudley's enormous shirt fell over it and almost to mid-thigh on Harry, concealing it neatly. He hurried back to the kitchen and handed the other letters to Uncle Vernon.

He waited impatiently while the Dursleys ate their bacon and eggs, picking at his own single piece of toast. Harry only had opportunities to eat at breakfast and dinner, and he was still struggling to eat more than a few mouthfuls at a time since he'd been released from the cupboard.

When the rest of the family was done, Harry collected the plates and cleaned the dishes. Dudley sneered at him, but he was in too great a rush to try out a new video game at Piers' house. Sonic the Hedgehog called; Harry Potter remained unmolested.

With his morning chores complete, and Dudley elsewhere, Harry was mostly left to his own devices - provided that his own devices would be clean, silent and out of the way. Harry went out to the yard and sat in the shade of a tree. With its solid trunk between himself and the window - and thus guarded from Aunt Petunia's prying eyes - he opened his letter and began to read.

It was, as he'd been promised, an offer from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry examined the thick parchment, pressing into it with a fingertip. He couldn't help but wonder if this was a very elaborate trick, but he had to discard the idea almost immediately because he didn't think Dudley was smart enough to come up with it.

Also because it seemed like it would be really difficult to get the voice in his head to corroborate it.

_There is that_, the voice agreed.

Harry wrote his acceptance on the form enclosed with the letter, but he didn't have any stamps, and he didn't know where to send it. He needn't have worried, however, because as soon as he'd finished penning his name in round, childish script, a barn owl swooped from the tree above and landed next to him.

He stared at it.

It pecked his fingers until he let go of the form, then snatched it up and waddled a few steps away before disappearing back into the sky.

Harry sucked on his pecked finger. "Is that... normal?"

_Yes_.

"Okay," he said, in the voice of a person who wasn't going to question that issue because it was too difficult, and examined the remaining parchment. "Wow, where do I go to get all of this? And... how can I... I don't have any money," he said slowly.

_I'll show you how. The Hogwarts Express leaves from Kings Cross. We'll go just before you need to leave and stay in town._

More grateful than ever to have a friend who knew how to take care of these things, Harry nodded, folded his letter, and shoved it back down his pants. It was hard to contain his excitement: he'd be at a school for people just like him, well away from the Dursleys. He smiled at the garden.

_Of course,_ continued the voice, _there's no reason why you have to wait until school starts to begin learning magic. Why, I'll bet all the properly-raised children already know lots of spells._

Harry bit his bottom lip. He didn't want to be behind before he'd even started!

_I could help you, but I'll need you to spend a great deal of time looking things up for me and reading when we do get to London. Can you do that for me, Harry?_

Harry didn't mind reading. He much preferred it to laying in the dark doing nothing. And books about magic would probably be interesting. "All right," he agreed.

_Very well. Tonight we'll start by learning how to unlock that cupboard door._

Harry was frustrated by how challenging it was to use his magic intentionally, even though the voice told him repeatedly that this sort of magic was not easily learned. Nevertheless, by the time his birthday came around, Harry could leave his cupboard at will to clandestinely raid Aunt Petunia's fridge.

The magic the voice taught him was small and largely insignificant: finding water underground, opening locks, levitating very light objects. He learnt about the useful properties of the common herbs and plants in Petunia's garden, which was, according to the voice, 'appallingly stocked'.

He also learnt, as he went, about other facets of magical life: he learned about dates ruled by the astronomical events, which changed year to year, like each solstice and equinox; he learned about the bilberry feast and holy wells of Lughnasadh, the bonfires and omen-watch of Imbolc, Beltane purification and Samhain sacrifice.

_You've missed Lughnasadh, _the voice told him_. Your next seasonal celebration is Samhain. You will be at Hogwarts then, so it might be difficult, but I'll show you what to do._

Harry woke very early one day mid-August and was abruptly informed that he needed to steal whatever fare he needed to get to London.

"I don't know if I should _steal_ something," Harry said doubtfully.

_Well_, said the voice, terribly reasonable, _do you want to go to school or not?_

"Of course I do," Harry muttered, swinging his legs over the side of his cramped little bed.

_You're not going to get there without getting to London._

Harry frowned, but he got up, waved a hand over the lock of the door and crept out into the still-silent house. "I still don't like it," he whispered.

_You don't have to like it_, the voice told him a bit sharply. _You just have to do it.__  
_

Aunt Petunia's wallet was somewhere else, but her red-and-white shoulder bag was next to the coat stand in the hallway. With his heart pounding wildly, Harry fumbled around in the bottom of the bag until he found the bits of loose change she'd left there.

_Calm down_, the voice said, sounding terribly exasperated. _It's fine. Nobody's going to catch you. It's barely five o'clock, and they're never up until at least half seven._

That, thought Harry, was easy for him to say. He wasn't the one who was likely to be beaten and locked up for the transgression.

But he got the money and hid it in his clothes. Then he went back into his cupboard, locked himself in, and waited for Aunt Petunia to rap her knuckles on his door.

Breakfast flew by. He ate almost nothing, washed the dishes, waited for Uncle Vernon to leave and for Aunt Petunia to tell him to go out and mow the lawn. Then, instead of following her instructions, he and the passenger in his head took off to the bus stop.

Harry had never been to London. It was enormous, and crowded. The voice in his head seemed to expect a very different city, which overlapped with what he was seeing. It quickly frustrated both of them. Eventually, however, Harry found the correct street: a long one lined with prosperous and busy shops.

_The Leaky Cauldron_, said the voice, a little disparagingly, and Harry's eyes finally settled on a little pub that looked very grubby indeed. Curiously, the other passers by didn't seem to notice it at all. There was indeed a sign hung out the front, creaking miserably in a stiff breeze, which declared the place to be 'The Leaky Cauldron'.

Harry stepped into the dank, dingy interior and followed the instructions of the passenger in his head out to the courtyard. It was a small, ugly courtyard, and contained nothing but a trash can and some weeds struggling through the cracks in the stones.

_Most wizards would need a wand, _said the voice, a little smugly_, but if you remember what we learned with your unlocking spell you can do it with your fingers. Three up, two across._

Harry got it right on the second try.

_Don't gawk_, warned the voice in his head,_ just start walking_.

Harry stepped through the bricks, trying not to stare at all of the strange new things. The archway closed itself behind him and he took off alone down Diagon Alley.

Gringotts was a towering building made mostly of some beautiful, costly white stone. The voice told Harry to look as much as though he knew what he was doing as he could, so he peered down the long line of tall wooden desks and went quickly to one where the goblin was unoccupied.

"Name," said the goblin, without much grace or politeness.

"Harry Potter," said Harry. The goblin didn't react to this except to glance up and examine him.

"Key?"

"I..." Harry trailed off. "I haven't got a key."

The goblin looked up from its books and then down its long, pointed nose right at him. One long-fingered hand reached out and grasped the edge of its desk. The nails on that hand looked extremely sharp. "Do you have some alternative way to identify yourself?"

Harry's mind raced. "I don't have a license or anything," he said, wondering what kind of identification an eleven year old might be supposed to supply.

The goblin was looking at him as though he was some very suspicious, menacing thing. In fact, the place was full of goblins, and it seemed to Harry as though they each had one eye on his conversation, all of a sudden.

_Tell them to use your blood. The Potters are an old family. They will be able to match it_, said the voice.

"My blood?" Harry said, in a high, uncertain voice.

The goblin looked impassively down at him for a moment, and then, after a second, it pulled out a piece of fuzzy paper and pushed it across the wooden desk to him.

Hesitantly, Harry took the long, silvery pin that was offered to him and pricked his finger. One drop of red blood fell onto the paper. Before Harry's eyes, it spread into a spidery red script, which read _Dorea Potter (née Black)._

The goblin examined the paper minutely. "Since you are not the guardian of Harry James Potter, and you do not have the key to Harry James Potter's vault," he said, "you will not be allowed to access that vault. However," he added, burning the slip of paper over a candle flame, "Dorea Potter's blood was registered with Gringotts, and no other members of the Potter or Black families have stepped forward to claim the key to her vault. You may make a withdrawal from that vault."

_She's dead_, clarified the voice helpfully, _and the Black family wouldn't even notice the contents of her vault._

Harry found that difficult to believe, because when he was shown into his relative's vault - huge, stone, imposing and dark - he was confronted with an intimidatingly large pile of gold glittering in the torchlight. The voice in his head gave him a quick run down of the measurements of currency, and he took from the gold galleons, silver sickles and tiny bronze knuts to fill a bag given to him by the goblin, who watched impassively.

"And who's this?" asked a picture on the wall.

Harry froze. He looked over at the woman, who had been painted in some kind of elaborate headdress, which tumbled down with her wool-thick dark hair, strung with jewels and one long feather. She was perhaps fifty years old, but her face bore the traces of a remarkable beauty.

_Runs in the Black family_, the voice in Harry's head mused quietly. Then: _So does madness._

Harry swallowed. "I'm Harry Potter," he said to her, straightening up.

"Well, you certainly _look_ like a Potter." She peered out at him, smoky eyes flicking over his clothing. "And were you raised by wolves, boy?" she wondered, eyeing the frayed hem of Dudley's shirt.

"No, ma'am," he said. Then he felt compelled to explain. "Muggles."

She sniffed at this news, as though in her opinion it was much the same thing. "When I see you again, Mister Potter, you had better not be wearing rags."

"Yes, ma'am," Harry nodded. She waved him away imperiously.

He fled her vault.

_Dorea Potter was right_, the voice said thoughtfully as Harry stepped out onto the street outside Gringotts. The sun was hiding behind pale clouds, but the air was still warm. _You can't walk around in those muggle rags. You need to get some robes. Turn left._

Harry did as he was instructed, stopping briefly to look in the window of the apothecary, where he saw some truly gross bits and pieces floating in jars, including something that looked like a whole heart.

_There will be time for all that later_, the voice prompted, and Harry started walking again. He came to Madam Malkin'd Robes for All Occasions, and stopped just inside the doors.

A short, dumpy, impeccably clothed witch bustled up to him with a tape measure drifting lazily behind her head. "Hogwarts, dear?" she inquired, and all Harry had to do was nod.

He was whisked away to perch on a stool while her magically automated tape measure took the numbers for all sorts of measurements, including ones that could have no possible relevance to his school robes. He flinched away when it tried to wrap itself around his head.

After a few more attacks from the measuring tape, Harry got fed up. "Stop that!" he snapped at it, and the measure fell out of the air and to the ground with a soft thump.

The boy on the stool next to him laughed.

Harry glanced over at him. The boy had very blond hair and very pale skin, grey eyes and pointed features that reminded Harry a little of a barn owl. He looked exactly Harry's age - which was to say that he looked older than Harry, and largely better nourished.

"Hello," said the boy. He looked Harry up and down with a sharp, appraising eye that made Harry very glad for the dark robes covering his shabby hand-me-downs. "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," Harry agreed.

The boy nodded as though this was all very much expected. "My father's next door getting my books and my mother's up the street looking at wands. Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own," he added plaintively.

Harry was uncomfortably reminded of Dudley for a second, but then the boy flashed him a conspirational smile.

"I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow," he added, eyes glinting.

Harry smiled uncertainly back.

"Have you got a broom?" the boy asked.

Harry shook his head, then shifted uncomfortably on his toes as a pin came a little too close to his skin.

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"No," Harry said again, wondering what on earth 'Quidditch' was. He licked his lips. This was evidently one of the 'properly-raised children' he'd been told about, but Harry felt stupider by the second talking to him.

"Do you know what school House you'll be in yet?" The boy seemed to be trying hard to find something Harry could talk about.

"I - no," Harry said again.

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they? But I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been - surely you've thought about it?"

Harry wondered if the voice was going to tell him what to say, but it was oddly silent. "I don't know," he said, finally. "I only found out about Hogwarts a few weeks ago. I've been living with muggles." He felt like this was a very shameful thing to admit.

The boy gave him a dark, suspicious look. "What about your parents?" he asked.

Harry frowned. "They're dead," he said. "They were killed in - in a war?"

"Oh. Sorry," said the boy, much as though he'd been taught it was the thing to say, and not at all as though he was sorry. "But they were _our_ kind, weren't they?"

"They were a witch and a wizard, if that's what you mean," Harry said. He suspected it might be. From the conversations he'd had with the voice, he thought that muggles might be a particularly controversial issue.

All traces of suspicion left the boy's face just as quickly as they'd arrived, and he looked upon Harry with something uncomfortably like pity. "And they left you with _muggles_? That's rotten luck."

Harry reflected on this very apt comment for a second. "Yes," he agreed. "It was."

"That's you done, dear," interrupted Madam Malkin, not unkindly, and Harry hopped down off the stool.

"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy, who was being fitted for an astonishing array of expensive-looking clothes.

"I'd like that," said Harry, surprising himself. The boy was ignorant and spoiled rotten, but he was also friendly, and he was the first person Harry had met of his own age who didn't think Harry was a freak.

_It doesn't hurt to make friends with people that rich, either_, commented the more prudential passenger in Harry's head.

Harry didn't comment on this, feeling vaguely guilty, but he also didn't disagree. He'd never had any money of his own until this morning, after all, and he knew how it felt to want it. The voice, he reflected, did not seem to have a great capacity for shame or guilt.

He left Madam Malkin's in a new set of robes, which, being plain and black, were unremarkable in the crowd. The next stop was to buy a wand, which was a particularly harrowing undertaking. Ollivander's ancient wand shop stood at the end of the alley, and the old wandmaker muttered to himself as he hunted through the stacks to find new wands for Harry to try.

"Holly and phoenix feather," he said, handing him the box. Harry had no sooner lifted the wand than it was snatched away again.

He tried maple and walnut and vine wood and yew, and each new wand was set aside when it failed to respond properly to him. Harry was no longer even certain as to what Ollivander was hoping a wand would do in his hands.

He wondered, horribly, if maybe he wasn't a wizard after all.

The voice was extremely derisive on this point, which kept Harry's hopes up.

"Here," said Ollivander finally, handing him a new wand. "Aspen and phoenix feather, twelve and a quarter inches. Give it a wave."

Harry took the wand and felt heat and light race up his fingers. A jet of happy red sparks shot out the end of the wand.

"Ah, bravo," said the wandmaker. When Harry was paying for his new wand, the old man reached out and gently stroked a finger down the lightning bolt scar on Harry's head. "I sold the wand that did that," he said regretfully. "Thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Powerful wand."

_Very powerful_, mused the voice, a distracted counterpoint in the back of his head.

Harry didn't know what to think about that. He knew, of course, that the same spell that had killed his parents had to be what had given him his scar, but he didn't like being confronted with it.

"Thank you for my wand, sir," said Harry, and, clutching it tightly, he left the store and went blinking back out into daylight.

Harry liked the apothecary. It was an ugly, dank place with little sunlight, and it reeked of something woody that caught in the back of his throat and left him uncomfortably aware of the urge to cough. But there was such a fascinating range of ingredients that curiosity more than accounted for his discomfort: glossy green feathers and crows' feet hung drying from the ceiling, and bins and shelves were filled with odd bits of copper, funny grey stones, unicorn horns and newts' eyes. Harry saw swollen organs in glass jars glinting unpleasantly down from their shelves, and shadows folded painstakingly into a box. Behind the cashier's desk was a single tiny phial of sparkling diamond dust.

Harry enjoyed looking around and carefully identifying each ingredient the voice had taught him about, but he was eventually a little bit disappointed that a supply of potions ingredients for a first year was not, ultimately, all that interesting. Because the cashier seemed so disinterested, Harry added a few other ingredients that the voice suggested to him.

Flourish & Blotts was next, as proclaimed by the peeling letters above a battered store. It seemed like an unlikely repository for such an enormous range of books, but as soon as Harry walked in it was apparent that it was much bigger on the inside.

_Charms to distort space_, the voice clarified._ Stop gawking. You'll attract attention._

Harry took another second to look around, but then he obediently ducked his head and got moving. He found all of his text books, and, on the voice's instruction, also got _Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century_ and_ Modern Magical History._

By this time, Harry was attuned enough to the voice that he could feel that it was annoyed by something without it saying a word.

"What is it?" he asked quietly into the pages of a bright book he'd picked up off a shelf called_ Year with the Yeti_. Its claims seemed perfectly reasonable to Harry, who was new to the Wizarding World. (The voice in his head treated it with profoundest disdain.)

_They're missing books_, said the voice, rather darkly.

Harry glanced around. There seemed to be a lot of books to him.

The voice made a cranky noise, which made Harry's head hurt. He flinched and nearly dropped his book, and the voice quietened, but didn't apologise. _They're missing books that deal with certain histories, specific kinds of magic... things the Ministry wants suppressed._

"Maybe," said Harry, voicing an uncertain thought, "maybe they're a bit dangerous?"

_Some of them,_ the voice agreed without reservation, _are certainly dangerous. But should you not be able to read about a thing, just because it's dangerous?_ The voice dug around in his mind for a moment, looking for a good analogy for a ten year old.

"Like if muggles couldn't read about guns," Harry said suddenly. A boy one row of books over looked up, trying to see who he was talking to. He gave Harry an odd look and moved away. Harry ignored him, but he hid his mouth behind the book he was holding.

_Close enough_, he agreed grudgingly. The voice didn't like his comparison. Probably, Harry thought, because the voice didn't like anything to do with muggles. _Should I? What have they done for **you** lately?_

Not a lot, Harry was forced to admit. But still, some weren't all bad, surely. The voice didn't bother to argue with him on this point. Harry could feel why: the voice was so completely convinced that he was right that the argument seemed completely unnecessary.

_Buy these, and that_ - Harry looked up to where the voice indicated, and saw a copy of_ The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_. He pulled it down and added it to his stack.

"Ravenclaw, then?" Joked the tall wizard Harry went to pay for his purchases.

"Raven claws?" Harry repeated, thinking of the crows' feet in the apothecary. Would they sell those in a book shop? He didn't know, and it seemed rude to assume. The Wizarding World was very different, after all. "Er. No, thank you."

The wizard gave him an odd look, but he took Harry's money anyway. "Now where?" Harry wondered when they were back on the worn cobblestones of Diagon Alley.

_To get a room. Not in the Cauldron - it's too well known. Lots of people go there. This way._ The voice directed him to the hard-to-spot stairwell next to Amanuensis Quills and the shady pub above, which was called The Blind Boggart.

Harry didn't know what a boggart was, but it didn't sound very friendly. He let himself into a front room, which smelled stale and bitter. The furnishings were made of some pale wood, and the floor looked to him like it needed shovelling more than it needed sweeping.

"Excuse me," said Harry, peering over a tall wooden desk at the proprietor. This was a small-eyed, rat-faced man with greasy dust-coloured hair. "I'd like a room."

The man eyed Harry.

Harry stared back.

He bared his discoloured teeth. "Paid up front," he hissed.

Feeling very out of place, Harry counted out the coins he asked for. The man watched him, never taking his beady eyes off Harry as he scraped the coins off the top of the desk with his long, dirty nails.

"Third on the right," he said, and when he lifted his hand it was empty, Harry's coins long gone. He pointed, still looking at Harry, down a long and dirty corridor.

"Thank you," said Harry. He took himself and his school supplies down to the third room on the right and closed the door after himself.

Despite the unpleasant appearance of the rest of the place, the room Harry had taken was reasonably clean, even if it was plain and cheaply furnished with only a table, a chair and a bed. On one wall, there was a faded poster advertising the Society for the Tolerance of Vampires.

"Are they real?" Harry wondered, examining the oddly friendly, fanged person on the poster.

_Yes,_ came the prompt answer. _But they don't usually bother people unless they're hungry_, he added, which didn't sound entirely reassuring to Harry.

That day, along with several after, turned into an oddly pleasant haze of reading about the recent history of the Wizarding World. To Harry, whose hours had never been his own unless he was locked in his cramped dark cupboard, it seemed like an unusual indulgence to sleep as late as he wanted and spend his days lazing about reading books at the gentle behest of the voice in his head.

Had Harry been a spoilt, lazy child, he might have found their relationship far less cordial, but as it was, the voice was patient and reasonable; Harry was eager to please. When well-treated he was tractable and the voice only had to assert the gentlest pressure before he was quickly obeyed.

It was something of a shock to Harry to find that he was written about in all three of the volumes on recent history that he'd gotten from Flourish & Blotts. He didn't think he liked the assumptions and suppositions made in some of those articles, and quite aside from being hailed as a hero for something he barely remembered, he was annoyed about something else.

It had occurred to him, while reading the books, that the voice that shared his head so patiently was actually a person. This had been apparent to Harry for some time, of course, but the knowledge had not been fully integrated. Now he realised that he didn't even know the voice's name, he'd set out looking for it.

Harry was pretty disappointed.

"Do you not _have_ a name?" Harry wondered finally, closing the cover to _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ with a thump and a huff. It had by far the most extensive section dedicated to Harry himself, but the shadowy terror he'd faced as a child - now taking up quiet residence in Harry's head - was known only as 'You-Know-Who'.

Harry, fairly obviously, did _not_ know who.

With an odd noise of amusement, the voice told him to check under 'V,' in the book, but to no avail. "You're under 'H'," Harry discovered after some careful hunting. "For 'He Who Must Not Be Named'. It says that everybody knows your name but nobody speaks it," he added, a little annoyed.

_My name,_ said the voice,_ is Lord Voldemort._

"Huh," said Harry, nonplussed. "That's a funny name."

He flipped the book open again and recommenced reading about the slightly overzealous efforts of a Dark Wizard named Grindelwald.


	3. Chapter 3

After reading carefully through the history books - punctuated with Voldemort's commentary - Harry felt like he knew a lot more about what had been going on in the Wizarding World than he had ever known about the muggle world.

_For a value of 'knowing more' that is greater than living in a cupboard_, Voldemort agreed.

Harry ignored this. The voice was cranky because he had been forced to conjecture -reluctantly - that the other piece of himself was probably wandering the world as a kind of unhappy psychic mist.

It didn't sound very comfortable to Harry, either. There were clearly other things that Voldmort was thinking, but he chose not to share them with Harry, and Harry didn't ask. As he read through his books, however, he couldn't help but raise some questions.

"Excuse me," he said finally, having just read about the Muggle-Born Massacre of 1979. "Did you really kill all those people?"

_Yes_.

"It doesn't seem, er, very reasonable," Harry hedged.

_It's not_, Voldemort agreed.

That concession was something of a relief, even if the massacre itself didn't seem to bother the voice at all. Harry didn't think he could be so unaffected if he'd murdered a bunch of people, but Voldemort's thoughts were rarely troubled by deep or self-reflective feelings: rage, amusement and resentment, yes; shame, affection and sadness, no.

"Well, then, why -?"

_On reflection_, Voldemort admitted, not happily, _something may have gone a bit... wrong._

"Wrong," Harry repeated, turning the word over on his tongue. He wasn't sure what it meant in this context.

_I was working with a lot of experimental magic. I'm the post powerful wizard of all time, of course_, he said, unencumbered by anything so dreary as modesty,_ I was doing magic that other wizards aren't even capable of._

"And you think something went wrong?" Harry prompted.

There was a long, silent moment. It hung in the air like the laboured click and whir of an old computer.

Finally, Voldemort said,_ I need you to find a book for me._

This led Harry to the unenviable task of trying to track down a copy of _Magick Most Evile._ This, Harry eventually understood, really was one of those books that were dangerous. Dangerous, and so ill-reputed that he wasn't even allowed to ask about it at the nice book stores lining Diagon Alley.

_Oh yes_, Voldemort said without a hint of shame,_ it's very dangerous magic. But I used it when I was splitting my soul up, and I need to see it again to be really certain what happened to the rest of me after I cursed you._

There was an odd quality of feeling to that statement, and Harry realised that Voldemort sounded, for the first time he could remember, as though he wasn't quite certain about something. Like something was worrying. Harry still wasn't sure about this business of splitting up souls: he didn't understand it, and it seemed like an odd thing to want to do to yourself.

He considered this, quietly, in the recesses of his own mind. Voldemort didn't dislike questions the way the Dursleys did, but Harry had to pick his moments, or all he'd get for his trouble was a scathing one-word answer and a headache.

Voldemort left an uncomfortable, disturbed feeling in his head when Harry learned from a shady Knockturn Alley book dealer that most copies had been lost in Ministry raids over the last ten years.

_The knowledge in that book is invaluable_, he muttered when Harry finally got a response out of him. _I expect there's still a copy at Hogwarts... though Merlin knows we won't have an easy time getting it._

"Is there no other way?" Harry wondered.

_There are some private libraries scattered around the country that might have a copy. Malfoy almost certainly does_, he mused, _which would be useful if I was in my own body, but I doubt he would admit it to you._

"Is he a person who was on your side, then?" Harry wondered.

_Nominally_, said Voldemort._ I am stronger than him, so he followed me. But the Malfoys are all political creatures. They're mostly on their own side._

Harry digested this. "That sounds lonely," he said slowly. He knew that name, vaguely; he thought it might have come up in his history books here and there. There had been something about cursing a muggle queen. That meant that they were probably one of those old Wizarding families.

_Very old_, was the response. And then, after a moment's reflection and a bit of a sigh, something Harry only grasped the edges of: _Personal loyalty is not as valuable as you might believe. Loyalty to a friend or master will vary, but a man's loyalty to his own skin is pretty much constant._

September first saw Harry pack all of his things in a trunk (larger, of course, on the inside than the outside), slip back into Dudley's oversize castoffs and head for Kings Cross Station. He ran into a small roadblock when, upon examining his letter, he found that it required him to present himself at platform nine and three quarters, but the voice let him know that the barrier was the entry.

Harry went through just after a large group of red-haired young witches and wizards. They seemed quite loud, but friendly enough. Their extremely bright hair clashed with the scarlet Hogwarts Express, which was breathing steam all over the milling crowd of witches, wizards, cats, owls and -

"Gran, I've lost my toad again."

"Oh, Neville," the old woman sighed.

Harry wondered who would keep a toad as a pet. Maybe the boy really disliked insects, or something. Harry bypassed the exasperated old woman in her awful vulture-topped hat and steered his trolley toward the emptiest-looking train carriage.

"We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat!" Somebody yelled raucously over the crowd, and Harry turned his head to see the same red-headed wizards he'd entered behind. One of the twins was evidently trying to console their youngest sister, who was staying behind. Perhaps she wasn't old enough yet.

_Hmm. Red hair and no money_, murmured Voldemort. _Weasleys_. _They're an old family. And prolific_, he added a bit drily.

"Oh," said Harry, looking at the family again. If he was looking carefully, he could indeed spot the frayed hems and patches on second hand robes. Still, he didn't think having not very much money was the problem in itself.

He turned away and began the laborious work of getting his trunk onto the train. He was pained, but not really surprised, when all he managed was to bring it down hard onto his foot.

_They're also a prime example of the sort of people who'd prefer to live among muggles. They have a few hereditary seats on the Wizengamot, I think. You've read about some of the laws they've helped pass._

Harry nodded slowly. Voldemort had told him there was no 'Misuse of Muggle Artifacts' office when he was at school, and the history books agreed with him. "That was that thing with the... the raids, and the -the muggle protection," Harry muttered to himself, which he regretted, because it gave him an instant headache.

It was nothing like the one he'd experienced the week previous, when he had seen a small article in the paper debating the Ministry's right to raid private property for 'dark magics,' and the proposed Muggle Protection Act which would supposedly grant such powers.

Voldemort had flipped his skirt, and poor Harry had stayed in bed all day, nursing the worst hangover an eleven year old ever had.

Even Harry, who was still a bit unsure about this dark-magic-light-magic business, had seen the transparency of the article's reasoning: if these dark artifacts were in magical homes, there wasn't much chance an unsuspecting muggle would stumble upon them. There had to be some other motive for riffling through people's basements for dark magic.

Harry glanced back at the redheads with a new, uncertain suspicion. He had the sinking feeling that if he let Voldemort talk to him about every person he met, he'd never be able to trust anybody.

Still, he didn't think he'd like government thugs rummaging in his cupboard.

_It's a controversial proposal_, Voldemort said, ignoring the irrelevance of Harry's smarting toes and how his trunk still wasn't even on the train, which seemed increasingly likely to depart with him still dithering on the platform,_ it'll take at least a year to get through to a deciding vote in the Wizengamot._

"That's nice," grunted Harry, heaving at the trunk.

There was a sudden silence, and then a burst of intent from the voice in his head, which communicated itself to Harry mostly in a rush of sparkles across his vision. He dropped the trunk again, this time on the bridge of his foot. "Ow," he said.

_You could have yourself emancipated from your guardians by then_, Voldemort was saying.

"I don't _care_," Harry hissed back, and now people were starting to give him a wide berth, because he was a young boy all alone and muttering to himself while he repeatedly injured himself, which didn't communicate mental health to anybody, not even in the Wizarding World. "Just let me get this thing onto the train."

Voldemort subsided into impatient silence, peeved as a stepped-on cat, and very much as though the practicalities of Harry's life existed just to intrude upon his very busy internal duologue.

"Do you need help lifting that?" asked a voice behind him, sounding both overeducated and criminally posh.

Harry leapt - and of course all progress he'd made on the trunk was lost when it crashed back to the platform, but at least he got his toes out of the way this time. Harry turned, gingerly favouring his right foot, and saw the pale boy from Madam Malkin's not-quite muffling his hilarity in his sleeve.

Behind him was the man who'd spoken: tall and pale, finely-dressed, with a heavy fall of very blond hair. He had a snake-topped cane and fine lambskin gloves.

_Ah_, interjected Voldemort, in a voice that was almost a purr. It didn't seem to signal anything good._ Lucius. I see he evaded Azkaban very neatly_, he commented, and it was more ironic than surprised.

Harry was a bit wary of accepting help from this man, but in the end he needed the help, and he _had_ offered: "Er, yes, please," he said, ducking his head.

Without lifting a finger, the pale man floated his trunk aboard the train. Harry decided he was quite looking forward to learning how to do that.

"Thank you," Harry said politely.

The man nodded, and then turned to his son. "I expect to receive your owl following your Sorting, Draco," he said, and apparently that was how the Malfoys took their leave because as soon as the pale boy nodded his acquiescence, the father was gone.

And then Draco and Harry were alone in the train compartment together.

"Thanks," said Harry again, brushing his sweaty hair back from his face. "I think we met in the robe shop, didn't we?"

"Yes," Draco agreed. He leaned in. "Is that a scar?" he asked with quite a lot of interest, nodding at Harry's face like he wanted to point but was just a hair too polite. Before Harry said anything in response, he went on. "I'd heard Harry Potter was coming to Hogwarts this year. It's you, is it?"

"Er," said Harry. "Yes."

Draco nodded. "My name's Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

He said this without any embarrassment at all, so Harry was forced to suppose that this was a reasonably normal name for the Wizarding World. It was certainly no worse than _Voldemort_. He held out his hand to shake Harry's.

Harry took it. "Harry Potter," he said.

They shook hands. Draco smiled. He had a sharp face, but smiling suited it. He paused in silence for a second, like he wasn't sure what to say.

Harry could think of all sorts of things to say, all sorts of things to ask. He licked his lips, trying to come up with a polite way to intently question the other boy about his upbringing. "So you were raised by a proper Wizarding family?" Harry blurted after a long, awkward pause.

Far from taking offense at his awkwardness, Draco looked a bit relieved to be given something to talk about. "Yes. The Malfoy family's been in Great Britain since the eleventh century - Armand Malfoy came with the Norman Conquest." He pointed out the crest on his own trunk, which was a shield flanked by fierce black dragons. Across the silver scrolling was written _Sanctimonia Vincet Semper_.

Harry felt his eyebrows rise. That was an awfully long way back to know your family line. "Wow," he said, which seemed to be precisely the reaction Draco wanted, because he beamed back at Harry. "You're lucky, I don't know anything about my family. I only found out some of their names when I went to Gringotts," he said, thinking of the sultry Dorea Potter in her lonely portrait.

Draco looked up from where he was shoving his trunk back under the seat. He gave Harry a funny look. "But the Potters were a pureblood family," he said.

Harry shook his head. "I didn't even know they were wizards until this year."

"What, not at _all_?" Draco looked shocked.

"Well, I knew my parents' names, but the family that raised me said they'd died in a.." he paused, wondering if wizards had cars. He didn't think he'd seen any. "A muggle accident," he settled on eventually.

The shock was quickly giving way to horror. "So you didn't know -?"

Harry shook his head. He wasn't about to tell Draco that the piece of the Dark Lord living in his skull had clarified the issue for him somewhat early. "I read some history books when I went to Diagon Alley," he said instead. "And, you know, surprise! I was in them. I still don't really know what I think about the whole business, honestly," he said, and at least that last bit was true.

"So you don't remember anything about _the night_?" Draco asked suddenly.

"The - oh," Harry said, seeing what he was getting at. "I remember a lot of green light and some weird, high-pitched laughing."

In the back of his head, Voldemort shifted irritably. Harry smiled. Draco did _not_ smile.

"Wow," he said. He looked pale. Then, slowly, "I suppose it's a good thing that you can't remember more, really."

Harry nodded, but this wasn't really what he was interested in, so he changed the subject back. "Anyway, I only found out some of my relations when I got to Gringotts," he said, shaking his head. "And then... somebody else has the key to the main Potter vaults. Or somebody lost it."

Draco shook his head. "No, it would be at Gringotts if it was lost. That's how they work. Somebody would have it. Not the _muggles_, surely," he looked affronted by the very thought.

"No," said Harry firmly. He doubted his uncle's hatred of magic extended to a boatload of Wizarding gold held in Harry's name.

Draco shrugged. Obviously this was as much a mystery to him as it was to Harry. Harry shook his head. "I thought I was in trouble, only the goblins let me use my blood to see who was related to me, so-"

"_Merlin_, don't say that so loud," Draco hissed, cutting him off. He glanced toward the compartment door, but it was still closed.

Harry gave him a startled look, but shut his mouth with a click. "Sorry?"

Draco looked positively panicked for a second, but he composed himself quickly. He took a deep breath. "Look, Potter, I don't mind, of course I don't, but if you go around talking about blood magic, the people out there are going to think you're the next bloody Dark Lord." He tilted his head toward the door of their compartment to indicate... basically everybody else, Harry thought.

"Blood magic?" he whispered, and frowned. "All of the history books said blood magic was, you know, killing people and -"

"Well, they would, wouldn't they?" Draco said derisively. "Look, Gringotts is a loophole, but blood magic, even just testing your blood line like that, that's a Dark Art. It's _illegal_."

"Illegal?" Harry repeated, stunned.

_Illegal?_ Voldemort echoed. _Ridiculous._

Harry was at least a little bit inclined to agree - although it now made sense why so few of his relatives were on file with Gringotts' goblins. "I'm sorry," he said to Draco, "I had no idea."

Draco waved a hand, relaxing back into his seat again. "As I said, I don't mind. There's a lot of... of that sort of magic," he hedged, glancing warily around, "that witches and wizards have been using for millenia without trouble. But you should probably not just go around talking about it."

"Right," Harry agreed. "This is the problem, though. I don't know anything about the Wizarding World! You obviously know loads more than I do. I bet," he added, voicing for the first time something that had been gnawing at him, "I bet I'm the worst in the class."

Draco tossed his head. "You won't be," he said, at once both dismissive and greatly disparaging. "They let all sorts of riff-raff into Hogwarts. There's loads of people who come from _muggle_ families, even."

"Draco," said Harry, "_I_ come from a muggle family."

"It's not the same," said Draco, shaking his head. "You're a... what, a half-blood, I think? Your father was certainly a pureblood."

Harry had heard these terms before, and had them explained to him by Voldemort. His aunt was a muggle, so if his father was a pureblood, he supposed he had to be. "I suppose," he shrugged.

Draco nodded. "It's different," he said.

He sounded very certain, but he certainly didn't volunteer to explain why it was different. This was ultimately okay because Harry had already had that argument many, _many_ times, and by virtue of being about fifty years older, Voldemort usually won.

"Anyway," said Draco, "I'm sure the library will have genealogical charts. We could look it up, if you want." He said this as though it was difficult to imagine a library _without_ genealogical charts.

Harry nodded. He questioned Draco closely after that, learning a host of things he hadn't picked up just from reading books. He learned the rules to Quidditch, the purpose of House-elves, and more about why Slytherin was the best House than he ever actually wanted to know (Voldemort's commentary on that was not precisely unbiased, either).

As the morning turned into afternoon, they were joined by two thickset, mean-looking boys, who were introduced to Harry as Crabbe and Goyle, and seemed both more or less interchangeable and largely mute. They were previously acquainted with Draco, however, and seemed to like having him there to do all sorts of complicated cognitive tasks for them. Harry quietly hoped they drew the line at tying their shoelaces.

_Their parents were much the same_, said Voldemort. There was some fairly unflattering opinion tangled up in that thought, not least being the totally uncharitable thought that the elder Crabbe and Goyle may have procreated simply to ensure that no generation of Malfoys would have to go through life without stupid, burly minions.

Ignoring the strange relationship between the three of them, Harry turned to his window. He saw the smoke and streets turn, somehow seamlessly, into neat, patterned fields of grass and sheep and cattle. It seemed like a nice day outside the window, and he relaxed a little into his seat. He didn't know what he was going to find at Hogwarts, exactly, but at least he wasn't still alone.

At about half twelve, a witch with a faintly squeaking trolley of snacks came by their compartment. "Anything from the cart, dears?"

Harry glanced over her array of food, but he didn't see anything he recognised at all. He examined some packaging curiously, but the Wizarding World evidently didn't have the same legal requirements regarding publication of nutritional information.

Draco rolled his eyes at this behaviour and bought a whole box of chocolate frogs, which seemed like an awful lot of chocolate for one person, and Crabbe and Goyle each bought a very big array of sweets. They didn't talk a lot, and the visit from the trolly witch seemed like it might be the chief joy of the train ride for both of them.

The witch pushing the trolley smiled at Harry when he hesitated. "Muggle born, is it?" she asked kindly.

"Er," he said. _No_, prompted the voice in his head, but Harry didn't respond to the witch's question. He felt uncomfortably like he'd be lying. Malfoy, happily, was engaged with snatching his frog out of the air mid-hop, and didn't notice his ommission.

After another awkward pause, Harry purchased some cauldron cakes, some pumpkin pasties, and a package of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

"I'm trying to find a Paracelsus," Draco said to him when Harry sat back down.

"A what?" Harry frowned, depositing his spoils into the empty seat next to them.

"Oh, that's right, you wouldn't know," said the blond, holding up a card from his chocolate frog packaging. It had a picture of a man on it with a tremendous white beard and half-moon spectacles, behind which his blue eyes glittered gently. He was dressed in yards of bright fabric with polished buckles.

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE, read the card.

"So that's Dumbledore," Harry muttered. He felt a single stab of pain through his scar and closed his eyes, waiting to see if it would happen again. It didn't, and Harry didn't ask about it.

"Don't tell me you hadn't heard of him?" Draco asked curiously. "He's very famous. Father says he's a rubbish headmaster, though," he added thoughtfully.

"I read about him - in _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_. And other books, but he had a whole section in that one."

"Because of Grindelwald, I suppose," said Draco thoughtfully, munching a frog. It stopped squirming when he bit into it, much to Harry's relief.

Harry nodded, surprised that Draco knew. Maybe it was common knowledge? He sighed. It was going to be so obvious he'd been raised by muggles.

"What?" Draco asked, delicately rubbing away a smear of chocolate with the tip of his index finger.

After a second, he said, "I've read a lot, and I'm trying to learn as fast as I can, but I don't have any... I don't know what people think about things, or how well-known things I've read about are, or if it's important to know certain things. There's a whole load of, just, you know, stuff."

Neither Crabbe nor Goyle looked up from their food, but Draco looked thoughtfully at him. "You mean context."

Harry nodded. "I just don't want to say something and make an arse out of myself," he admitted, scratching his nose.

Draco made a humming noise. His eyes were very assessing for an eleven year old - assessing for a grown man, really.

There was a knock on the door of their compartment, and the boy Harry had seen complaining about his lost toad on the platform came in. He had a girl with him, one with a head full of bushy brown hair and front teeth slightly too large for her face. She was wearing her Hogwarts robes, and looked quite a lot more organised and put-together than her companion, who just looked distressed. "Has any of you seen a toad?" she asked, planting one hand on her hip. "Neville's lost one."

Harry shook his head. "No, sorry," he said.

Draco glanced at the girl, but didn't say anything. He shook his head too.

The boy sniffled.

"Oh," said the girl, noticing the card in Harry's hand. "Is that Dumbledore? Isn't it funny how the pictures all move?" She said, causing Draco to stiffen imperceptibly. "I thought it was holographs at first," she added cheerfully, and then, like a freight train, went on: "It was such a surprise when I got my letter - nobody in my family's magic at all, obviously. I've learned all my course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough. I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

_Hex her_, said Voldemort, in the brief, stunned silence following this onslaught.

Draco gave her a bored look. "Malfoy," he said, and then peered disinterestedly, and in Harry's view, affectedly, out the window. Somehow his disdain translated itself to Crabbe and Goyle, because neither looked up at her.

"Harry Potter," said Harry, feeling very awkward.

"Oh! Really?" Hermione smiled at him. "I know all about you, of course. I got a few extra books for background reading. You're in _Modern Magical History _and_ Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century_."

"Really," drawled Harry.

Hermione looked uncertain at his tone, but she soldiered on. "You four had better get changed, you know," she said in her bossy voice. "We'll be arriving soon."

Harry thought that Hermione Granger was every horribly gauche thing he did not want to be as a newcomer to the Wizarding World. She also wasn't going away. He looked at Malfoy.

Draco wasn't facing him, but he must have felt his gaze because he turned back and leaned over, finally, to interrupt: "You'll soon find out that some kinds of wizards are better than others, Potter," he glanced sideways at Crabbe, who looked up from his Liquorice Wand to nod emphatically in agreement, "and _some_ kinds of people you'd be better off avoiding all together."

Goyle also put his food down in favour of rising to his full height, which, for an eleven year old, was an intimidating one.

Hermione Granger looked stunned. Then, slowly, offended. "You don't know anything about me," she said sharply.

"Why would anybody _want_ to?" Malfoy sniffed. "You can go now," he added imperiously.

Eyes flashing, speechless and furious, she spun and left, taking the toadless boy with her. The compartment doors slammed after her.

Draco Malfoy glanced at the door as though expecting the girl to reappear. "At least there's little enough chance _she'll_ be Sorted into Slytherin."

"No?" Harry said, curiously.

"My father says that Slytherin didn't like muggle born students in his House," Draco said.

Harry privately thought that if he was somehow Sorted into the same House as Draco, he'd soon develop some kind of nervous twitch in response to the words 'my father'.

They didn't arrive until evening, and when they did, the first years were cut from the group and herded toward some tiny row boats by a man who towered over all the students.

"I've heard of him," said Draco, which was only a little reassuring. The man was bigger than Uncle Vernon, and, Harry suspected, well past the legal height limit of most trucks. "He's the Gamekeeper; a sort of servant."

Harry nodded. They climbed into a boat together, held steady by Crabbe and Goyle, who piled themselves in after.

He wasn't sure what he had in mind for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but when their boats passed into view of the school, he froze in place.

Hogwarts was a _castle._

"What were you expecting?" Draco wondered, peering over at him curiously.

"Er," said Harry, thinking of the low, red-brick buildings that constituted most of the muggle schools he'd attended. Stonewall High certainly was not housed in a castle, he was sure. But he couldn't say any of that to Draco.

Instead he just remained silent, and the blond shrugged and let him be.

When they arrived at the castle, all tired and excited and some slightly wetter than others, they were greeted by an extremely severe looking witch with dark hair, who introduced herself as Professor McGonagall. Harry remembered her name from his letter.

"She's the Deputy Headmistress, right?" he whispered.

Draco nodded silently. McGonagall was talking, explaining what purpose the Houses served. She did not, Harry notice, explain what the Sorting entailed.

Finally, she said: "The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting." Her disapproving gaze surely encompassed the whole group, but Harry couldn't help the feeling that she was looking at him specifically, and he tried urgently to flatten his hair.

"You look fine," said Draco, not looking at him. Draco had a certain haughtiness that made him look as though he'd never been touched by the faintest gnawings of anxiety, and right then he was one of the few students who didn't seem nervous at all. Well, him and Crabbe and Goyle, but Harry wasn't sure those two boys had enough intelligence to be nervous.

McGonagall left, and a murmur went through the assembled students. He overheard one of those redheaded Weasleys talking to a boy next to him: "...of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but..."

A nervous titter went through the crowd of first years at the arrival of a group of ghosts, who, largely ignoring the students, drifted over their heads and through the opposite wall.

"Move along now," said a sharp voice, startling many of the students. It was McGonagall, who had come back in catlike silence. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."


	4. Chapter 4

Hogwarts Great Hall was an enormous space lit by the golden glow of a thousand candles. There were four long tables laid out with a glinting golden table setting, and at each table ghosts were scattered among the students. When the light hit their colourless forms, it lit them from the inside, and they shone like silvery beacons.

The Sorting Ceremony turned out to be simultaneously more and less intimidating than Harry had feared. He was terribly relieved to discover that the only test required of him would be whether or not he could sit on a stool and put on a hat without tripping over his own feet; however, the nature of the whole Sorting process seemed like one he had very little control over.

The Hat sung its own strange song of introduction before they commenced trying it on one at a time. It said that Gryffindors were brave and daring and chivalrous, that Ravenclaws were terribly clever and loved learning, that Hufflepuffs were faithful and hardworking, and finally that Slytherins were cunning and ambitious.

The muggle born girl with the freight train mouth became a Gryffindor after a few minutes of long, squirming deliberation on behalf of the Hat. Harry wasn't sure which House he'd be sorted into, but he sort of hoped it wasn't that one.

The name 'Malfoy, Draco,' was met with a laugh and a whistle from the Slytherin table, and sure enough, the Sorting Hat had barely grazed the top of his pale hair before it screamed 'SLYTHERIN,' to the Hall at large.

Draco pulled it off and sauntered to the green and silver table, where a few of the other students greeted him. Well, thought Harry, that was one person who'd be happy with his Sorting.

Now his turn was quickly approaching. 'There's nothing hidden in your head the Sorting Hat can't see,' the Hat had assured them. When he thought about what this could mean, Harry began to feel very anxious. What _would_ the Sorting Hat see in his head? Would it see Voldemort?

Harry hadn't spared much thought as to what might happen if somebody found out about his passenger - because the voice was in his head, and he'd assumed that the thoughts inside his head were _private_ - but it occurred to him now that Voldemort wasn't merely an unusual variety of schizophrenia in the Wizarding World. Here he was a real and tangible threat.

And Harry was harbouring him in his head.

His heart climbed steadily into his throat. He gnawed his lower lip, thinking furiously. Could he somehow avoid being Sorted?

Anxiously, he prodded the presence in his mind. _Could_ he?

Voldemort prodded him back - with a sharp stabbing pain in his face so intense his vision swam. _Stop that_, he said, and went back to whatever it was he did in Harry's head when they weren't talking. Snooping, Harry suspected.

Before he'd fully recovered from that bright burst of pain, McGonagall called out, "Potter, Harry!" in her sharp voice, and he found himself stumbling up to the stool.

A rustling of whispers spread through the tables, low and quick. "Potter, did she say?" he heard somebody mutter, not very quietly, at the red and gold table.

The Sorting Hat descended onto his head and over his eyes as another voice hissed, "_The_ Harry Potter?"

His vision was swallowed by the dusty dimness inside the hat. Harry did not like sitting up in front of the entire school with this hat over his face, unable to see anything while their judging eyes assessed him.

"Hmm," said the Hat's small voice in his ear, "Plenty of courage, I see - and not a bad mind either, if you've the will to use it... but such a thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting. That's _ambition_," the Hat mused. "Where shall I put you?"

Harry's heart fluttered under his breastbone. He didn't know what to think. He hunched. The Hat slipped further forward on his head.

"You could be great, you know," said the Hat, and Harry had a terrible flash of memory: of sitting here, the weight of years past crushing him, listening to those exact words whispered in his ear:_ you could be great, you know._

He stiffened, but the Hat had already Sorted him, bellowing "SLYTHERIN!"

Harry heard the Great Hall ring with the Hat's pronouncement. In a deafening silence he stood, removed the Hat, and walked shakily to the Slytherin table.

Finally, one of the Slytherin prefects began to clap. The table quickly joined her and the other tables followed. If the cheers from the other tables seemed less than sincere, Harry was so busy being relieved that the Hat hadn't found Voldemort inside his head that he didn't notice.

Spaces next to Draco had been quickly snapped up by the thickset, mean-looking Crabbe and Goyle, so Harry set himself down a few seats away, only half paying attention to the rest of the Sorting. The last boy Sorted, a 'Zabini, Blasise,' took his seat next to Harry to polite applause.

The Headmaster stood up to speak, but all he said was "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" and then he sat back down to a round of thunderous applause.

"What was that?" Harry wondered. Zabini glared at him from his left, and all Voldemort offered was the vague hypocritical notion that perhaps Dumbledore was attempting humour.

The feast began: golden dishes filled with perfectly-cooked cuts of meat, dishes of vegetables, sauces and gravies. The smell alone made Harry feel, suddenly, exactly how hungry he was. He put as much on his plate as he thought he could eat, but it was still barely half what the other students seemed capable of packing away. Crabbe and Goyle, in particular, Harry noticed, managed to eat quite a lot.

Harry felt somebody's gaze prickle at the back of his neck. Probably, he thought, glancing around, it was because he was supposed to be famous. He looked toward the high table where the teachers sat, and found exactly the eyes locked on him: black and glittering, belonging to a man in severe black robes. He looked only about thirty, but nature and a profound lack of grooming had conspired to create a visage almost compellingly ugly: hawk-faced, pallid, sharp and angular. He had long oily hair and flashing black eyes, and he was staring at Harry.

_He was one of my followers_, Voldemort said. _Severus Snape. He may well be the Head of House for Slytherin now,_ he added, sounding slightly surprised at the idea himself.

Harry had the powerful impression that Snape didn't like him.

Harry turned his eyes away before the eye contact got any more awkward. "Who is it Snape's talking to?" he wondered, examining the white-faced, twitching man. He looked quite strange in a large purple turban.

Voldemort didn't know, but the girl on his right, who had finished her conversation, now glanced up at the high table. "Professor Quirrell," she said. "He used to be the Muggle Studies teacher, but just this year he got back from a sabbatical and now he's got the Defense position. It's a wonder Snape's even talking to him," she added thoughtfully. "Everybody knows he wants Quirrell's job."

This seemed greatly to amuse Voldemort, which Harry thought probably boded ill for _somebody_. At the end of the feast, the Headmaster got back up and made some announcements about school rules, an uncomfortable number of which seemed to include life-threatening consequences.

_I wonder what's in the third-floor corridor, _said Voldemort curiously.

Harry wondered, too - but not enough to risk his limbs to find out.

_I suppose not, _Voldemort agreed, but Harry could feel his curiosity like an ominous cloud in his mind. He tried his best to ignore it.

Then, finally, the feast was over. The girl next to Harry got up and got the attention of the first years, telling them that her name was Gemma Farley and she was one of the Slytherin prefects that year. Harry and his new housemates obediently followed her through the castle. She took a long, winding path that seemed to drop steadily down, so that when they finally arrived at the Slytherin common room Harry could no longer tell which direction they were facing or how far below ground they were.

The common room was a big stone room lit by torch light and an enormous fireplace. There were leather-upholstered lounges and lush, overlapping carpets covering the worst of the icy stone floor. On the broad stone walls were paintings. Some of them were portraits whose subjects moved in their frames and inspected the new firsties with undisguised curiosity.

Six four-poster beds hung with heavy green curtains greeted them when they went up to the boys' first year dorm. Draco Malfoy inspected the choices and imperiously selected the one he thought was best first. This was a thing that made Nott and Zabini look very sour, but Harry couldn't see how the beds were much different, so he was just as happy to pick whichever one Malfoy didn't want - any one of them would be far superior to the cot he crammed himself into in Privet Drive. Crabbe and Goyle immediately staked out the two nearest the door, neatly putting their huge bulk between the other boys and anything that came through.

Harry shook his head and went for one of the back corners. It looked dark and cozy back there; that would do for him.

"Slytherin after all, Potter?" Malfoy asked, smiling.

Zabini snorted softly, derisively, and pulled his curtains closed, but Malfoy's gaze never even flicked to him.

Harry scratched the back of his neck. "Seems like it," he said, looking around. Crabbe and Goyle were already in pyjamas, and wherever Nott was, he was no longer visible. He supposed it could certainly be worse.

_Of course it could_, said Voldemort, who had been reflective and silent for some time. _It's by far the best House._

Harry sighed, wished Malfoy a good night, and climbed into his bed. He was pleased to be Sorted into Slytherin - he _was_. But he was almost certain he was the only person in the dorm who didn't have the benefit of being raised by magical parents, and that left a sour nervousness in his mouth.

_It'll be okay_, said Voldemort, which was oddly comforting._ You'll learn. I may even help._

Harry frowned, not certain if Voldemort was being serious or making fun of him. He shook it off, took his glasses off and closed his eyes with a sigh. He was so full and tired that he felt the gentle tug of sleep within moments.

_I still need that book_, Voldemort reminded him just as he was drifting, startling him awake again.

Harry blinked his eyes open. The dorm was dark, and darkness leeched the hangings of their colour: all he could see above him were flat black shadows. "_Magick Moste Evile_," Harry whispered, as quietly as he could. It was good to know that the voice in his head could be relied upon to have an ulterior motive. He relaxed.

_Yes. You can check the library between classes. It was in the Restricted Section when I was a student here._

"Okay," Harry agreed, and then he rolled over and went to sleep.

He woke very early the next morning. However indifferent Voldemort's shadowy presence pretended to be, Harry was convinced he had more than a little to do with it. Nevertheless, Harry stumbled out of bed much earlier than he might have chosen to otherwise.

Harry's school things had responded to some unknown charm by dyeing themselves green and silver around the edges. Dressing was actually the first - and, in Harry's view, least necessary - ordeal of the day. Voldemort abhorred all forms of sloppiness, and Harry was by nature sloppy. Even his hair refused to submit to scissors or a comb.

The Hogwarts uniform included a tie in House colours, about which a lengthy discussion ensued.

_Stop complaining_, Voldemort hissed impatiently. Harry fancied he could see the red glint of somebody else's eyes peering out in the mirror. It might have bothered him, but all he could think was that at least he wasn't alone. Also, he was too busy trying to tie his necktie, because Voldemort eventually won all of their arguments and sometimes it was easier just to give in.

_No_, he was saying then, _no, keep that loop loose._

"You just said to make it tight," Harry muttered, staring at his fingers in the mirror. His small, pale hands, so deft at scrubbing, pruning, weeding and chopping, were somehow alien and clumsy when trying to tie a neck tie.

"I didn't say anything, dear," murmured the mirror sleepily. The ones in the Slytherin dormitories' bathroom had been hexed so many times by irate students that they were now more or less beyond apathy.

Voldemort was a different matter. _That was a different loop._

"How many loops do I _need_?" Harry wondered, exasperated.

_As many as I tell you. Loosen it_. Harry sighed, but complied. _Behind the knot, through the top; pull the short end while you're tightening th... no_, he sighed, rather heavily, into Harry's mind.

"This doesn't even look like a proper knot," Harry mumbled, poking it. "Are you _sure_ you know what you're doing?"

There was an incredulous silence from the presence in his mind, a fleeting flash of wounded pride, and then a cruel sting that was more painful than Harry thought his query really warranted.

_Idiot boy. Stop, you're going to..._ Voldemort's thoughts were jagged, neurotic red scribbles, like the spiky line of a frantic heart monitor in Harry's head. Harry couldn't understand them, exactly, but they certainly didn't seem happy.

He was still making a mess of the knot.

_Let me,_ he growled suddenly.

"_Let_ you?"

_Count sheep_, Voldemort suggested.

"What?"

He got the sense of somebody taking a deep, calming breath. _Think about something boring. Count sheep._

Harry could _feel_ the man's patience fraying, threads snapping with every fumble of Harry's fingers.

"Fine, if it means so much to you." Harry inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and thought about - not sheep. He didn't like sheep. They were dirty and smelled strange, and their wool was all weird and oily. Trees, he thought: he contemplated one huge, brightly-scented pine tree, then another, and another, counting slowly as he built up the details of needles and -

- and his hands were moving on their own.

This so startled Harry that he stopped them, but by that time he already had a ridiculously complicated-looking knot at his throat.

Voldemort seemed... tired.

"Was that really worth that much effort?" he wondered, examining the knot. He wasn't sure how he was going to get it undone at the end of the day. The silk tie had long, thin, silver threads that glinted pleasantly in the torch light.

_Tuck your shirt in_, Voldemort snapped.

Harry rolled his eyes, but he complied.

When he was finally dressed, looking neater than he ever had in his short life, Harry collected his things for his classes and headed off in search of the library.

Within about five minutes, Harry was basically lost. He had no idea how he'd find his way around the castle without Voldemort's confident directions in his head. The library was a ten-minute trek from the dungeons and required climbing eleven different staircases, five of which tried to trick him somehow.

He arrived at the library at around seven o'clock. It was a vast space, with shelves cut into the stone walls and heavy wooden bookcases scattered more or less haphazardly through the area. There were a series of low tables and squashy chairs, presumably used for studying, set out where the librarian would be able to keep an eye on them.

The librarian herself was not in evidence, but there was a very sharp-looking hat on her desk: tall and pointed, wrapped with green and sporting a single glossy green feather. Harry was inexplicably glad to be alone in the library - as far as he knew there was nothing wrong with looking at the books in the school library, but the emptiness and silence made him feel like he wasn't welcome.

_That's just the muggles talking_, said Voldemort reasonably._ It's a school library and you're a student. What could be more natural?_

Harry supposed this was true. It would be a very strange school if students weren't allowed to read the books there.

_That way_, Voldemort said._ Oh, don't worry about that_, he added, when Harry paused to read the bronze-edged plaque that said 'Restricted Section'. _As long as you don't actually touch any of the books, nobody will even know you've been in here._

Harry hesitated.

_Unless you dawdle and get caught_, he added waspishly.

This decided Harry, and he crept across the partition with a glance over his shoulder. He followed the voice's instructions, hunting first for books authored by somebody named 'Godelot.' Voldemort warned him not to open any of the books if he could possibly help it. Harry nodded his assent and peered at their titles without touching.

Searching by subject took Harry to a much older section of the Restricted Section, one with aged, decaying covers and very worn pages.

The old books were fascinating, but Harry couldn't read them or even touch them, and he quickly determined that half of them weren't even in English. He got bored quickly, but persevered out of a sense of obligation to his friend.

"That one looks different," Harry said at one point, eyeing a very damaged book stacked in a dark corner. He didn't touch it, but he was tempted. It looked like it was made of something soft, maybe fabric of some kind.

_Human skin,_ said Voldemort.

Harry recoiled. "That's gross," he said, pulling a face.

Voldemort wasn't disgusted, but he was annoyed. _What a waste,_ he muttered sourly. _Human skin won't hold ink._

Harry was more interested - or horrified - by the idea that there existed people who killed other people just to write on their skin. His stomach turned.

_It might have already been dead,_ Voldemort suggested in a rare attempt at comfort - one that didn't change Harry's awful imaginings of the event very much.

They both decided, for very different reasons, that they didn't care for the book, and quickly moved on.

He searched for an hour - longer, really - but there was no hint of the black and purple cloth binding he was looking for.

"Maybe they took it out of the Restricted Section," Harry suggested in a whisper. As far as he knew, there was nobody to overhear him, but the library didn't seem to invite normal speaking voices.

_Ridiculous_, said Voldemort. _Where else would they-_

He stopped, and was silent for a moment. Harry's scar gave an unpleasant throb.

_Dumbledore_, he hissed. His loathing was powerful, and necessarily painful for Harry to hold inside his head. The next few moments felt to Harry as though his head was being boiled in a vat of hot oil. He made a noise through gritted teeth. "You're hurting me," he muttered.

The pain didn't even slow.

_You'd better get to class_, Voldemort said. A distraction would help.

"Right," Harry mumbled, stumbling away from the Restricted Section with one hand clapped to his forehead.

He realised too late that he hadn't taken the time to check for witnesses.

"Do you have permission to be in there?" demanded Hermione Granger, looking straight at him with her fists on her hips. "I saw you in there when I came in."

Harry peered around his hand to see her. Voldemort's resentment was cooling to a simmer, clearing his head a little. He thought frantically about what to tell her.

"Do you need permission?" he temporised.

"Of course you do!" Hermione snapped. "It says so on the sign right there. If you don't have permission, Madam Pince will take points for sure. You'll get in a lot of trouble."

"The sign says you need permission to _read_ the books," Harry pointed out. "If you saw me, you know I was just looking at the titles."

Hermione Granger didn't look impressed. "I don't think the professors would agree with you. Give me one reason I shouldn't report this to Madam Pince right now," she said stiffly.

Voldemort heaved a sigh somewhere in the back of his mind and gave Harry a tiny nudge.

"One of my housemates..." Harry licked his lips.

"Yes?" Hermione prompted impatiently.

"He said I'd be able to find some books in there that would help me, you know, not be so obvious about being from a muggle family."

"But you're not," Hermione pointed out suspiciously, and of course she would know that, she probably knew more about his family than he did.

"I was raised by my aunt," he said stiffly. "She's a muggle."

Hermione's expression softened as soon as her suspicions were assuaged. "Well, you won't find anything like that in _there_," she said with a huff. "I expect your housemates were just playing a trick, trying to get you in trouble. It wouldn't surprise me, given the things I've heard about Slytherin," she added darkly.

"About Slytherin?" Harry asked.

"Of course," she said, tilting her head up. "Salazar Slytherin was a dark wizard - of course, admitting it was different back then. And they say You-Know-Who himself was one."

The anger in Harry's head was shot through with a dark trickle of amusement, which dramatically lessened the headache.

"Oh," said Harry. "I didn't know that." And he hadn't, about Slytherin. He glanced at the clock. "Don't you have to get to class, too?" he asked.

Hermione followed his gaze. She gasped. "Oh no! I'm late for Transfigurations!" And then she spun, swinging her overfull book bag wildly, and dashed away. Harry sighed in relief.

Harry's first class was Herbolgy, a subject taught by a squat witch with a friendly smile and iron-grey hair. She paused when she called out Harry's name on the roll, but she didn't comment on it, to his relief.

The notes that accompanied the first twenty minutes of class were surprisingly interesting. There was a lot of work involved in managing magical plants, and it was dreadfully important to learn to tell them apart.

Harry found himself quickly partnered with Malfoy, who seemed not to want to be dependent on the academic competence of Crabbe or Goyle, despite their supposedly superior knowledge of the magical world.

Some things, Harry surmised, could not be made up for with good breeding. He didn't mention this to Malfoy, since it seemed to please the other boy to feel he was doing Harry a favour.

It was as the class was being split up to find and identify various harmless-but-important plants in the huge greenhouse that Harry's lesson was interrupted.

"Professor McGonagall," said Professor Sprout in surprise. Indeed, it was the tall, dark-haired witch from the night previous. Her robes were buttoned up to her chin like somebody's maiden aunt, and she looked very severe. Harry thought that perhaps the muck and mud of the greenhouse did not sit well with her.

"Sorry to interrupt, Professor," she said politely. "I wondered if I might borrow Potter for a moment."

Harry found himself rapidly whisked away from Herbology class. He glanced over his shoulder at Draco. The blond boy gave Harry expressionless eyes for a moment and then raised his eyebrows. Harry shrugged one shoulder.

"Come along, now, Potter - don't dawdle," said McGonagall.

"Sorry," said Harry, trotting to catch up. He wondered if he was in trouble. She didn't seem happy, but then she hadn't seemed happy the night before, either.

Professor McGonagall set a brisk pace. She took Harry back to the castle, past the Great Hall and up to the first floor. Coming to an exceptionally ugly gargoyle, she stopped and announced: "Sherbert lemon!"

The statue sprang to life at the sound of this unlikely phrase, and Professor McGonagall showed Harry up the curving spiral staircase that took them up several floors and into Dumbledore's office.

_Hasn't changed much_, mused Voldemort while Harry glanced around. Harry received a hazy memory-image of the office. In the memory, as now, it was filled with wooden tables and stands all balancing what looked like very convoluted bric-a-brac: brass models of intricate design, a huge stone basin, mirrors with hazy edges, banners and books - all of which Harry took in with multitudes of painted eyes staring down upon him. On a stand next to the desk perched a bird with glossy crimson feathers, which slowly bled to a burnished gold at the tail.

A phoenix. Harry stared at it, dumbstruck for a moment, and Voldemort didn't even scoff. It was the size of a big swan, and much more beautiful. Despite the majesty and beauty of the thing, Harry could see that its long beak and talons were very, very sharp.

"Wait here, please, Mr Potter," said McGonagall. "Headmaster Dumbledore will be in soon." She laid one hand firmly upon Harry's shoulder, let it rest there for a moment, and then left. Her shoes clicked, unmercifully loud on the stone floors.

And then Harry was all alone in the Headmaster's office.

_I couldn't have planned it better,_ purred Voldemort, who saw this moment as nothing less than a golden opportunity.

Harry was more worried about what it was he might have done to earn an audience with the Headmaster of the whole school on his first day. It wasn't even lunch time yet!

_Books,_ Voldemort said peremptorily.

Harry went over to the bookshelf and obligingly ran his eyes over the spines, but his mind was fixed on his own anxieties. Did they somehow know he'd been in the Restricted Section? Perhaps the Headmaster already knew there was something wrong with him. Maybe he was here so they could tell him he was a freak and he had to go home again.

Maybe they knew about Voldemort.

Harry glanced to the top of the shelf, where the Sorting Hat sat comfortably on top of a dog-eared copy of The Tales of Beelde the Bard.

Worry gnawed at his insides.

_They don't know,_ said Voldemort._ The Hat's not sentient, it's enchanted. Its purpose is to Sort children, and, occasionally, protect Hogwarts. Even if it noticed me,_ _they won't learn from the Hat. But,_ he added thoughtfully, _Dumbledore is supposed to be a very good Legilimens. You should probably avoid his eyes._

None of this made Harry any less anxious. Not least because the word 'Legilimens' had brought along with it a trail of information, and Harry was suddenly confronted with the knowledge that people in the Wizarding World could apparently read each other's minds.

"Ah," sighed Dumbledore, making Harry jump. The old man had somehow come up behind him without Harry's notice, and now he was looming. Voldemort's shock and sudden, bitter resentment caused a powerful pang in Harry's skull.

Dumbledore, thankfully, didn't seem to notice. "Books, Harry?" he asked curiously, with a benign smile. He had half-moon spectacles with golden wire rims, and they set off the blue in his twinkling eyes. "Not the phoenix? I have to say, when introduced to my office, most students don't immediately go to the book shelves." He gestured at a bronze model dragon, which stretched its wings and exhaled a plume of steam.

"I _was_ curious about the phoenix, sir," said Harry, carefully fixing his eyes upon those glinting wire rims, "but the books don't have talons."

"Ah, if only that were always true, Harry," Dumbledore said with a soft chuckle. The phoenix heard it and gave a musical, liquid trill in response. "Alas," he added, guiding Harry toward his desk with a firm grip on his shoulder, "some books are very dangerous indeed."

Harry sat nervously on the edge of the guest seat, and watched as Dumbledore settled into his own high-backed chair and rearranged his bright, colourful robes.

"So," said Dumbledore, "How are you finding Hogwarts, Harry?"

That was unexpected.

"It's _brilliant_," said Harry truthfully. He beamed at Dumbledore and remembered only at the last second to restrict his line of sight to the man's tremendous silvery beard.

"Excellent, excellent," said Dumbledore cheerfully. "I'm rather fond of the school myself. But this meeting is not just a matter of checking in with you, Harry," he added regretfully.

Even with Voldemort's simmering anger toward the old man in his head, Dumbledore was... compelling. When he smiled, it was like a warm golden glow; his regret was a gentle thing, heavy and bitter. Harry bit his lip.

_Don't look in his eyes_, Voldemort reminded him in an angry whisper, like he was keeping his voice low lest the Headmaster hear him. The thought chilled Harry. He looked down at his hands. They were very white on Dumbledore's heavy oak desk.

"We've been in contact with your aunt and uncle," he said, touching some correspondence on his desk thoughtfully. Harry could see scraps of chemically-whitened paper among the soft parchment.

Harry froze. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't that. He felt a moment's surprise from Voldemort too - and then understanding and a wave of irritation.

"Do you know what they might have said?" Dumbledore asked Harry.

A number of responses came to Harry's mind, from _I bet they noticed when the dishes started piling up_, all the way to _you must have contacted them first because they don't usually admit I exist._

_Don't be stupid,_ Voldemort said flatly.

Knowing the voice was right, Harry closed his mouth with a click. He kept his eyes on his hands and shook his head silently, not trusting his voice.

Dumbledore sighed. "They had no notion that you had even received your Hogwarts letter, Harry. Why did you not tell your caretakers before you left?"

Harry didn't know what to say. He remained silent through a very long silence.

_You could tell him the truth_, Voldemort said finally. _See with what care he looks after the children in his power._

Harry licked his lips and said: "I thought they would take it away. They wouldn't let me come. They don't like -" _funny business_ "-magic."

The weight of Dumbledore's regard was almost crushing. His eyes had lost their twinkling cheer, and the office had lost its warmth. "Perhaps they don't, Harry," he conceded. He continued in a soft, reasonable voice: "But there's no reason your family would deny you your education, is there?"

Harry thought about that for a second. He wasn't really sure how to be clear without being confrontational. He didn't want to get into any more trouble on his first day at school. "I think they might, sir," he said respectfully.

"I doubt that very much, Harry. I know that sometimes adults seem harsh or unfair, but we usually have good reasons. For all her flaws, Petunia loved her sister Lily, and you're all that's left of her." He gave Harry a kind smile. "I suppose this accounts for your residing in Diagon Alley in the weeks before the school semester started, as well?"

Harry nodded slowly. "I thought maybe they'd - do something - to my school things, sir," he said. And then, more truthfully, "And I wanted to learn as much as I could before I came here."

Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, Master Blotts gave me an account of your purchases," he said agreeably, and Harry's blood ran cold. In his head, he felt Voldemort frantically reviewing what books they'd purchased at what shops.

The Headmaster seemed oblivious to the anxiety his comment had caused. "You're a voracious reader. Not always the subject matter I'd choose for a young man like yourself, but quite an impressive number of volumes. Did you find what you were looking for, Harry?"

Harry swallowed around his racing heart. "I don't know what you mean, sir."

Dumbledore gave him a long look, and then nodded thoughtfully. He unwrapped one of the lollies from the jar on his desk and offered the jar to Harry. Harry shook his head and declined. "How did you happen to find Diagon Alley, Harry? It's not the sort of place a boy stumbles onto on his own."

_Ah_, said Voldemort, pulled up short.

Harry very nearly stopped breathing.

_Lie_, said the voice immediately. _Lie. Tell him -_

"There were instructions enclosed with my letter, sir," said Harry. He was not a gifted actor, so he tried to keep his face as blank as possible.

"With your letter," Dumbledore repeated.

"Yes, sir," said Harry. "I think it was signed by Professor McGonagall?"

"I don't doubt it was, Harry, but the letters are written and addressed by an enchanted quill, not by Professor McGonagall herself. Do you still have a copy of these instructions?"

"No, sir," said Harry. "I threw the letter away."

"Ah, well," said Dumbledore. "No harm done, this time." He gave him a long, searching look; Harry tried very hard to look at his face without looking at his eyes. There was so very much inside his head that he did not wish Dumbledore - or anybody - to know. "Harry, I must ask you not to leave your family's home again. Quite aside from worrying your aunt and uncle, there's the matter of your safety to consider. For various reasons," his eyes flicked to Harry's scar, and then went back to seeking eye contact, which Harry still denied him, "it is very important that when you are not here at Hogwarts, you remain with your aunt."

Harry opened his mouth to protest, but Voldemort cut in:_ Just say yes and get out of here._

"Yes, sir," said Harry.

"There's a good lad," Dumbledore beamed. "And I think - yes, you should write to them. A letter of apology. Tonight will be soon enough, I think. Don't you agree, Harry?"

This was so patently unfair that Harry felt like he was about to explode. He didn't know what might come out of his mouth if he was allowed to speak, and he could feel Voldemort's agitation. He nodded.

"Excellent, excellent," said Dumbledore. "Well, back to class with you, Harry. I'm sure your friends are missing you."

Harry knew a dismissal when he heard it. He stood up. "Thank you, Professor," he said as politely as he could.

He turned to the door. His head ached and his stomach hurt from being knotted up so tightly. He wanted nothing more than to escape that room.

"Oh," said Dumbledore, just as Harry put his hand on the doorknob. He glanced back to see the Headmaster selecting another sweet from the jar on his desk. "Do remember my advice about books, Harry - not all of them are harmless, even if your young friends may say differently."

_That mudblood girl,_ Voldemort muttered. _Should have hexed her on the train._

"Er," said Harry. Then, much belatedly, "Yes, sir."

"There's a good lad," said Dumbledore, waving him away with one hand. He popped a sherbert lemon into his mouth and went back to the correspondence on his desk.

* * *

Obviously I love all reviews, but a couple of them were pretty helpful with the constructive criticism. So a big thanks to magicanimegurl, for pointing out a mistake in chapter 3 (now fixed, although I don't know how long it will take ffnet to upload the revision) and Plopp for making me more aware of Harry's age. I haven't hung out with an eleven year old since I was eleven, so it's hard to tell. Cheers.

But I like knowing what people think, so if you have a comment to make - even a negative one - that's what the review button's for. :3


	5. Chapter 5

Harry returned to Herbology feeling angry and very out of sorts. He took his time walking through the castle and out to the greenhouses.

"He knew I was lying," he muttered very quietly to Voldemort.

_Of course he did_, Voldemort agreed. _But the important thing is that he doesn't guess the truth. More importantly,_ he added, _he has the book._

"What?" Harry frowned. "Where?"

"Are you quite all right, young man?" asked a portrait, raising her eyebrow at him. She was a witch in a nun's habit, pouring a never-ending stream of water from a jug into a bowl. Her arms were probably very tired after a few centuries.

"Er," said Harry. "Yes, sorry. Just.. thinking aloud."

The witch in the portrait sniffed. "Yes, well. Perhaps you could think more quietly in future."

"Sure," said Harry, hurrying out of the castle.

Voldemort sent him an image of the Headmaster's face, his twinkling eyes glinting over those gold rims. "So?"

A thread of exasperation wound its way through his mind, and the image focused in, quite suddenly, on the shelf behind Dumbledore's head. There were three or four books there, and while Harry's memory was too imperfect for him to read their spines, one of them was definitely the right size to be _Magick Moste Evile._ It was cloth-bound, worn, and dyed faded black and purple.

It was a good thing that they'd found the book, Harry supposed, but he wasn't sure that breaking into the Headmaster's office would be a good idea - and he very much doubted the man would hand it over if asked.

_It will be fine,_ said Voldemort with overwhelming confidence. _We know the password, we just need a distraction..._

Harry paused outside the door of greenhouse one. He could see his classmates hard at work inside. "What about the portraits?"

_A dillusionment charm will sort them out. I'll teach you how. Useful spell, that._

Harry nodded, but didn't comment, and slipped back into the surprising warmth of the greenhouse with its damp-smelling air.

Malfoy looked up at him when he rejoined their group - consisting of Malfoy himself, Crabbe and Goyle, who looked very confused about the whole business - near the walking plants. "Special treatment already, Potter?" drawled the blond.

"Very special," Harry snorted. "Dumbledore wanted to warn me off running away from the muggles again."

"That old git," Draco sniffed. "If I'd been left with muggles I'd've run away at the earliest opportunity." Crabbe and Goyle put in encouraging grunts of agreement and went back to puzzling out their plant identifications.

With only a little confusion, Harry managed to pick out most of the plants he was supposed to be identifying. A couple of them even grew in Aunt Petunia's front garden, and he already knew some of the properties and uses for those. He wasn't ahead by the end of the class, but he was fairly certain he'd done better than Crabbe and Goyle, at the very least.

Herbology ended, and next was Transfigurations, so the boys packed up their things and headed off toward the first floor classroom. As they walked, Harry saw a number of other students staring at them - stares he probably wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't looked away so quickly. He frowned, glancing over at Malfoy. The other boy either didn't notice or didn't care. Harry couldn't tell which: Malfoy seemed used to a lot of attention and scrutiny.

Transfigurations was taught by Professor McGonagall, who was also the Head of Gryffindor House. The first part of her lesson was a short introduction to the purpose of the class, followed by a warning that no misbehaving would be tolerated in her class room. Harry found her quick, clever, and terribly strict. He wondered if she was as harsh with the Gryffindors as she was with the Slytherin class.

They took a lot of complicated notes - as it turned out, the secret of turning one thing into another thing was to understand perfectly its component parts and their magical attributes. This was something Harry had a greatly unfair advantage in, because when he glanced at the matchstick he was given, he had a sudden, perfect understanding of the theory he was meant to be learning.

_The wand-waving and incantations are helpful,_ Voldemort said apathetically. _But they're only tools for focusing magic. A lot of wizards learn nothing but wand-work, and they forget that magic is in them, not in their wands_. He sounded as though he didn't think much of these wizards.

Harry couldn't say anything without seeming very suspicious, but he nodded, pretending to be very focused on his matchstick. Crabbe had managed only to set his matchstick on fire, and Malfoy was reviewing his notes very carefully.

_Give it a try_, coaxed the voice._ It will be a lot easier to learn than unlocking your cupboard._ The tail end of this statement seemed something like a yawn, and Harry had a moment's acute sympathy for him, lying in silence in the depths of Harry's mind. He had to be bored stupid with the contents of the class.

_I've had worse mornings,_ he said indifferently.

Harry picked up his wand, examined the matchstick for a moment, and then turned it into a needle.

_Easy,_ said the voice.

"Well done, Mr Potter," said Professor McGonagall, appearing, tall and imposing, out of nowhere to loom over his shoulder. Harry flinched at her shadow, which she disregarded.

"Very good - your attention please," she said, loudly, and the class became silent at once. Professor McGonagall had the knack of keeping a class under control without effort. She was not a woman to be gainsaid.

She showed them all the needle, before handing it back to Harry. Harry glanced at the desks nearest him. Crabbe and Goyle were basically lost causes - if they were magically talented, it wasn't in Transfigurations. Draco's matchstick had turned silvery and pointed, but it was still undeniably wooden.

Harry glanced at the blond boy's face, and found him eyeing Harry's needle resentfully. An unhappy understanding struck him: Dudley and his parents had always hated it when Harry got better marks than Dudley did. And in class, Harry was sure Dudley would rather have failed than accepted Harry's help if he'd ever offered it.

Draco Malfoy _was_ a spoilt, entitled child along the same lines as Dudley, but he seemed marginally more polite, and -

_He's not a muggle_, interrupted Voldemort, rather sharply.

Harry wasn't completely certain that this made a great deal of difference, but it was true enough that he thought Draco Malfoy's better nature was more in evidence than Dudley Dursley's.

Voldemort made an ugly noise._ One day you will understand how grossly unflattering that comparison actually is._

Today was not that day, though, and it was with great trepidation that Harry embarked on the conversation that would, hopefully, mitigate Malfoy's resentment.

"Er," said Harry, hesitantly. It wasn't a promising start.

Malfoy's grey eyes snapped up to his immediately. He seemed annoyed to have been caught staring.

Harry swallowed. "You can..." he held out the needle tentatively, flat in his palm. "You could look at mine? If it helps. You did nearly all the work in Herbology, anyway," he added quickly. "And nobody else is going to get it this class."

Draco slanted a look sideways to the next pair of desks. Crabbe had succeeded in nothing more useful than making his new matchstick smoke ominously.

He turned his eyes back on Harry. After a heartbeat's pause, he nodded.

"Well, then," he said. He picked the pin out of Harry's palm with deft fingers.

Harry smiled. When he looked up he saw Professor McGonagall watching them with her steely eyes. He looked away again.

By the end of the class, Harry and Draco had a needle apiece. McGonagall looked at the pair and gravely awarded them a point each to Slytherin.

"One point," Draco complained in the corridors after they'd left. "Bet she gives the Gryffindors more - if any of them can even do it."

"I don't know," said Harry, "she seems very strict. Maybe she's like that with everybody."

Draco gave him a dubious look. "I think most of the professors favour their own Houses," he said. "Ours certainly does," he added, a little smugly. "We've got double potions on Friday, so we'll get to see how much."

Harry nodded vaguely. He doubted very much that Snape would favour him, if the expression the man directed at him the previous night had been any indication, and he was also once again preoccupied with the looks and mutters going on around him.

Partway to the Great Hall for lunch, Draco remembered something and dashed off, and Harry came to realise that the whispering and quiet stares were actually about him, not the pale boy. The voices stopped when he came close enough to hear them, but he did wish he could know what they were saying. As they sat down to lunch at the Slytherin table, he asked Crabbe, who had just begun to devour a generous slice of pie to his right.

"They're saying you're Harry Potter," Crabbe said, looking at Harry like he was stupid. One seat over, Goyle grunted his agreement.

"Yes, but..." Harry frowned.

"You're famous, Potter," said Tracy Davis, overhearing. Parkinson, with whom she'd been speaking, was eyeing Harry in a way he didn't necessarily like. "Don't pretend that you didn't notice. It's unbecoming." She rolled her eyes and returned to her discussion with Pansy.

"Is that really all they're talking about?" Harry wondered, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of the Great Hall. Of course, nobody else was watching when he was. But when he turned his back, he could feel their eyes.

"What are we talking about?" asked Theodore Nott, setting himself down on Harry's left.

"Potter's paranoid," said Davis cheerfully, picking an apple out of the magically replenishing fruit bowl. "Reckons he doesn't know why everyone's talking about him."

"Blimey," said Nott, "You'd think you'd be used to it. Saviour of the Wizarding World and all that rot." This last was more ironic than awed.

"I don't even remember it," Harry complained, still glancing uncertainly over his shoulder.

"Yeah, well," Nott said, peeling a mandarin with his fingernails, "unlikely to happen in Slytherin, anyway."

This was true, if Harry thought about it. None of his housemates treated him like he was special. He frowned. "Why is that?"

Nott glanced sideways at him. Crabbe and Goyle, if possible, seemed somehow more intent upon their lunch. Nobody answered him, but the first years were all suddenly very quiet.

Across the table, Zabini put down his Transfigurations text with a thump. He hadn't been involved in the conversation, and Harry had been certain he was ignoring them completely. "Because, Potter, most of Slytherin was on the losing side of the last war. Some families were very invested in the Dark Lord's cause - your new buddy Malfoy, for example."

"Draco's dad was under the imperius curse," bleated Goyle. This statement might have been more convincing if he usually spoke in much more than grunts.

"Of course," said Zabini, with a very insincere smile. He turned back to Harry, smile dropping away immediately. "All the same, I doubt you're the saviour of any Slytherin family, Potter." He went back to his book, indicating that his part in the conversation was over.

Harry turned to Crabbe, who was now very focused on a slice of treacle tart. "Is that true?"

Crabbe blinked at him. "About Mr Malfoy? Yeah, there's transcripts from the trial and everything."

"Not that," sighed Harry, who knew it was a lie even if Crabbe and Goyle didn't.

_I wonder how he avoided trial by Veritaserum_, Voldemort mused. _Bribery, I suppose. Typical_. Then, after a pause: _How did Snape get off? He'd never be allowed to teach if he hadn't been fully acquitted..._

Harry sighed as he felt one more task creeping toward his internal to-do list. Stealing from the Headmaster, digging into the murky pasts of his teachers...

_Don't forget the third floor corridor,_ Voldemort pointed out.

Harry's response was strangled by the fact that he didn't want to look totally insane in front of the rest of his year-mates, but Voldemort seemed to understand his general feelings on the matter.

_You didn't want to risk your limbs_, he said reasonabl_y. That was your concern, and I agree; it will be much harder to steal from the Headmaster and research your professors with fewer limbs._

Harry ground his teeth. Was there anything they could do that wasn't likely to get them expelled if they were caught?

"Are you okay?"

"Sorry, what?" Harry blinked to find Nott looking warily down at him.

"You kind of zoned out there for a second," he said slowly.

"Oh... sorry," said Harry lamely. "What were you saying?"

"...Anyway," said Nott, looking at Harry a bit oddly, "I was saying, it's definitely true." Harry blinked at him for a moment, which Nott seemed to misinterpret, because he rolled his eyes. "Of course it's true. You-Know-Who himself was a Slytherin. He was supposed to be brilliant." He gave Harry a slightly nervous look, "I'm not saying he was _right_ or anything, but -"

"Brilliant," Harry nodded. "Yeah. Reckon he probably was." The shadowy presence in Harry's head didn't comment, largely, Harry suspected, because Voldemort accepted people discussing his brilliance as a thing that happened all the time, like blinking or blood circulation.

Nott smiled.

Harry didn't know how well he could talk about the dark lord without accidentally giving himself away. He looked around, hunting for a change of topic, however awkward. "Where did Malfoy go, anyway?"

"Owlery, wasn't it?" Crabbe said. Goyle grunted.

Just then Malfoy sat down, looking disgusted. At a glance, it was easy to see why: somebody had hexed his hair bright red and gold. Crabbe and Goyle wisely avoided comment, but Pansy Parkinson looked up and smirked. "Nice 'do, Draco," she laughed.

He gave her a look like he was thinking about poisoning her pumpkin juice. Harry glanced at him, very carefully not smiling. "Who-?"

"Weasley twins, I'll bet," said Gemma Farley, who had come to the table. The fifth year girl stopped behind Draco and waved her wand over his hair, restoring it to its natural colour, if not its usual careful arrangement.

"The Weasley twins?" Harry repeated. He thought of the huge crowd of redheads at the train station.

_Hard to keep track, really,_ murmured the voice in his mind,_ there's just so many of them._

"Don't worry," Farley said to the first years in general, "I expect you'll run into them soon enough. Slytherins are their favourite targets." And then she was off again, striding purposefully toward the Gryffindor table with her silver prefect badge glinting on her chest.

"Lucky us," said Nott, looking at the way Draco's hair was all in spikes.

Draco glowered challengingly back at him.

"Did you get your letter sent, at least?" Harry asked.

Draco nodded, but he was preoccupied with trying to make his hair flat. Harry could have told him that was a losing battle, but he thought the commentary might not be welcome.

Charms was after lunch. It was taught by the tiny Professor Flitwick, who was so small he had to stand on a huge pile of books to see over his desk. Draco leaned toward Harry's ear and whispered: "Mother says he's part goblin."

Harry nodded, but he couldn't be sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, and Draco's face gave him no indication. Harry suspected that being so tiny probably made life more difficult - even if you were a wizard.

_At least goblins are magical,_ said Voldemort softly.

Professor Flitwick literally fell over himself when he came to Harry's name on the roll, causing the Slytherins to turn and give him significant looks - except Zabini, who was of course above significant looks.

The introductory lecture was much less humiliating: charms were some of the most common magic a witch or wizard could expect to encounter day to day: there were charms for making and extinguishing light, charms for cleaning, charms for keeping clothes warm and dry (or cold and wet), charms for mending... Charms, Harry realised, were a thing he was going to want to be good at.

_Charms are a good starting point for hexes and curses,_ Voldemort murmured contemplatively in the back of his mind.

Charms class was something of a blur for Harry. He wanted to cast the levitation charm and get it right first, on the first try, but Voldemort told him he had to wait - he didn't want any of his teachers looking too closely at his behaviour. This was frustrating, but ultimately reasonable.

Harry didn't really feel that surprised that Pansy Parkinson was successful first. From the state of her hair, she'd probably been practising some charms well before school started. That he hadn't been first to get it right in Charms or Transfigurations certainly seemed like it was bothering Draco, though. He scowled at his feather.

It didn't matter much to Harry, because by the end of the class nearly all of them could do it - even Crabbe and Goyle, who Harry had honestly not been certain were even magical.

Flitwick was so pleased with their progress that he let them get a head start on their homework during class, which was a brief description of what they'd learned about Charms in general and levitation charms in specific amounting to the length of 'half a foot, give or take an inch.'

They had free time before dinner, but Harry had to spend it composing a letter of apology to his relatives. By the time he took it up to the owlery to send it to Surrey, Harry was cranky, Voldemort was sullenly silent and the sun had well and truly set.

He was late to dinner, and ended up sitting next to Zabini again. The other boy glanced at him once, sniffed, and then pretended he didn't exist. This was basically the way he treated everybody, though, so Harry did his best not to take offense.

The week turned into a blur of classes and homework - rather a lot of homework, actually - punctuated by evenings in the Slytherin common room. These were nice enough: Theodore Nott made a serious, but ultimately futile, effort to teach Harry wizards chess (which Voldemort refused to help with, although he was more than happy to point out Harry's mistakes well after he'd made them), and Draco bored them all stupid with the endless reiteration of his father's opinions.

Oddly, nobody stopped him or told him to shut up. Harry wouldn't, because he didn't want Draco to dislike him - but Davis, Bulstrode, Nott and Zabini had no problems with telling people exactly what they thought of them.

_The family name,_ Voldemort said with a bored sigh, once Harry had escaped to the bathroom. He wasn't actually doing anything, he just didn't want to listen to the exciting discussion of whose parents had the most money.

"Surely," Harry muttered, examining his own face in the mirror, which was snoring softly, "nobody really cares all that much?"

_Have you been sitting in the same Slytherin common room all this time?_

Harry frowned. He'd been looking for another reason, but maybe it was just that simple. "Is he really that important?"

_Not as important as Draco thinks,_ snorted Voldemort,_ but important enough._

Harry thought about this. He'd tried, earlier in the week, to get some idea of what it was that Mr Malfoy actually _did_ from Draco, but the word 'job' seemed to confuse him.

"No, Potter, he doesn't have a _job_," he'd said scathingly. "Honestly. Jobs are for people who haven't got any money."

Harry wasn't sure how people acquired money _without _working, and he said as much.

"He _inherited_ it," he responded, completely confused, like he was trying to explain the sky to somebody who was standing right under it, and didn't understand why they couldn't just look _up._

"Yes, but _somebody_ had to-"

And then Draco had changed the subject, and Harry didn't bring it up again.

Harry supposed that their family had to have been extremely wealthy for a very long time in order for Draco to have no conception of the possibility of ever having a job. He supposed that making nice with a bunch that rich and powerful was probably worth listening to long rambling anecdotes - at least for the Slytherins. Harry couldn't imagine it going nearly so smoothly in Hufflepuff.

_Probably not,_ Voldemort allowed. But Harry inferred that this was offset by how awful it would be to be a Hufflepuff.

He just thought it was a bit sad that Draco was unlikely to ever have a friend who wasn't just... _putting up_ with him. The other first years in the common room, certainly, were all for what they could get.

_All human relationships are based on self-interest_, Voldemort said dismissively.

Harry considered this. He supposed it was even true, if you considered the undeniable sweetness of making somebody else happy to be a form of self-interest.

Voldemort scoffed.

"What? Haven't you ever done something just because it made you feel better?"

_Yes_, said Voldemort. A tide of brutal memories, fragmented and bright, washed over Harry's senses. They were almost too fast to catch: bright blood, ragged and breathless screams, broken nails scrambling. The primitive curling pleasure of hunting something helpless. The nerve-tingling euphoria of a correctly-cast Cruciatus. Bright green light.

"No! _No._" Harry swallowed hard. "Not like that," he said firmly. His tongue was dry and heavy. His heart was racing.

He blinked the thoughts away, but they were unlikely to stay gone. Now that Voldemort had given them to him, he would have to deal with them one way or another. The boy in the mirror was very white and didn't look very well.

He took a deep breath to calm his stomach, painfully reminded that he was sharing head space with a mass-murderer.

_Melodramatic_, said Voldemort critically.

"Shut up," said Harry, braced for the inevitable sting of pain at his rudeness. He got it. It actually helped, to a degree. He leaned over the sink to wash the taste of bile from his mouth. When he turned off the tap, the only sound in the room was running water.

It took him a long time to calm down.


	6. Chapter 6

Defence class was one which they had all been looking forward to, but it turned out to be something of a disappointment. Not only did Professor Quirrell seem to know less about the subject than he initially let on, but the class itself was mostly a combination of dry, silent reading and an auxiliary charms class.

It didn't help that whenever Quirrell turned away from the class Harry's head hurt like his skull was being split down the middle. At first he thought Voldemort was upset - because Voldemort certainly seemed not to like Defence very much - but the presence in his mind was equally clueless.

_It's not me_, he said, sounding annoyed._ But I can certainly feel it. I don't know what that is._ The idea that he didn't know something seemed to trouble Voldemort. He refused to speak about it more, but he advised Harry to keep track of it - insisted, actually, is more what he did. With his usual neurotic precision, Voldemort required that he keep track of the incidents in a book so they could review it over time.

Writing it down was easier than arguing.

It had the benefit of letting them know that Harry only felt this pain when Quirrell was around. Neither of them knew quite what to do with this information, so Harry settled into a pattern of observation and notation.

The knowledge didn't make attending Defence any more palatable, though.

_This is so shamefully bad I can't even laugh at it anymore,_ grumbled Voldemort balefully during their third lesson, which was Thursday morning. _The one class that should be most interesting - and useful - and you spend it reading about knockback jinxes in an outdated textbook._

"I thought you liked the Dark Arts," Harry mouthed silently to himself, hidden behind the edge of his text book. "Why are you so upset if Defence is a bad class?"

Voldemort made a vexed noise. _What you're calling 'the Dark Arts' is several extremely dangerous and difficult - and sometimes addictive - branches of magic, which don't even always have anything to do with one another_, he said. Harry kept his eyes fixed on his book, but he wasn't really reading anymore._ How to handle Dark creatures, spells and curses safely should absolutely be on the syllabus, and so should instruction in the basics of at least some of these branches, as with any other extremely useful magic._

Harry wasn't actually absolutely certain as to what 'the Dark Arts' as Quirrell used the term actually meant. _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_ gave the very unclear definition "certain types of magic when used mainly to cause harm". He found himself more or less forced to accept Voldemort's alternative definition, which was "any type of magic the dominant ideology does not like very much, which may cause harm depending on use, like any other branch of magic".

Harry wasn't certain, but he suspected that there were some spells which didn't have any purpose other than causing harm. The Killing Curse he kept reading about when he looked himself up was a good example.

_How do you think they killed the cow you ate last night?_ interrupted Voldemort scathingly.

Harry frowned. Had they really used the Darkest spell to make his dinner?

_No_, sighed Voldemort, _they probably put a Severing Charm to its throat. But the Killing Curse would have been quicker, and less painful._

Harry frowned harder. He understood clearly the point Voldemort was making, but whenever he thought about it too much, the new memories provided to him by Voldemort would leap out at him.

All that blood and screaming was terrifying.

Voldemort sighed. Harry knew he thought he was being stupid, but he couldn't help it. Everything Harry knew said those things were wrong, so wrong, horribly and irredeemably wrong.

_It was war,_ said Voldemort._ Violence is a necessary tactic in war._

It didn't seem to matter how many times, or how patiently or resentfully, he said it. Harry shied away from the implications of that blood lust, and he tried to deal with these memories by the simple expedient of not thinking about them at all.

Unfortunately for Harry, he had to assimilate them somehow, so they tended to leap out at him when he was most vulnerable: when he was tired or upset or, increasingly, asleep.

He woke, terrified and gasping, from more dreams than he cared to admit, sometimes several times a night. He could usually hear the muttered curses through his heavy bed hangings, and knew that he must make some noise when he slept.

Draco, oddly, dealt best with the problem: he was willing to magnanimously forgive Harry's sudden predilection for waking the whole room, and seemed to consider it an obvious and expected side effect of growing up with muggles. Most nights he heaved a sigh, hurled something at Harry's bed to wake him, and then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Vincent Crabbe and Greg Goyle tried to take their cues from Draco of course, but they were both as mad as startled bears when woken prematurely, and occasionally it showed in an early morning glower and grumble - and Theo Nott could be heard to mutter darkly that no memories of the Dark Lord would be as scary as _him_ if he didn't get some bloody sleep soon.

Blaise Zabini bewitched the heavy green curtains of his bed to allow no noise through. Rather typically, he did not offer to teach Harry the charm. That was fine, because Harry thought such a charm might be putting rather more faith in his housemates than they deserved.

Despite his increasingly troubled dreams - and steadily lowering tolerance of the rest of his House - his first days at Hogwarts marched on.

_This is ridiculous_, said Voldemort, at three o'clock on Friday morning, while Harry's heart was still slowing down. Draco's aim had become very good over the previous nights, and his copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ had smacked heavily into Harry's chest.

It was a soft copy of the text, which Harry took to mean that the other boy probably wasn't too mad. It probably wouldn't even bruise.

Harry sat up, trying to slow his breathing, and ran his hands through his hair. Deep in his mind, Harry could hear Voldemort heave a sigh, a peculiar expression for somebody with no breath.

_I do remember having breath,_ said the voice. Harry got the impression it wasn't in a very good mood. They hadn't been sleeping well lately, after all. _This isn't a natural state for me, either._

This gave Harry something to ponder that wasn't screaming and green lights.

"Do you miss having a body?" he whispered, too low to draw the attention of his sleeping housemates.

_What kind of question is that?_ asked Voldemort waspishly, his voice a low spiteful buzz in Harry's head.

A pretty stupid one, Harry conceded. "Is this... book, is it going to help?" he wondered.

_Maybe,_ said Voldemort after a pause._ It's more complicated than that. History seems to indicate that I went a bit..._ the next wasn't in words so much as impressions, but Harry interpreted his meaning as 'completely crazy,' and Voldemort didn't fault his understanding. _Even assuming three quarters of what's been written is political propaganda, the rest is still troubling._

Harry knew he wasn't worried about the damage he'd caused, any incidental deaths or tortures; Voldemort didn't worry about those things. But the illogic of it seemed to bother him in some insidious way that wasn't easy to define.

Harry thought about it for a few seconds. "Do you think that has something to do with your body?" He didn't know a lot about what happened when people went crazy, but he knew that sometimes it was a physical thing: Uncle Vernon would tell Aunt Marge when she visited that Harry was crazy and stupid, and that he'd inherited these traits from his father. And from there Aunt Marge usually talked for hours about the problems with breeding bad traits into her dogs while Aunt Petunia stared across the table at her with that very fixed smile.

_Your parents weren't crazy_, said Voldemort peevishly. _Wrong_, he added, _but not crazy. Muggles just need something to undermine a wizard's self-esteem._ It was a bitter thought, and Harry wasn't sure it was entirely directed at him.

Voldemort's family, he gathered from several confused thoughts and impressions, were not as fortunate as Harry's. Harry saw it in his head: a snake nailed to the wooden door of a hovel, an overgrown garden, a man with thick hair and dark eyes staring off in different directions. Hissing.

The frightening image of the man made Harry recoil. His gasp was a lot louder than his whispers had been, and he heard Theodore growl from deeper in the room.

"Shut UP, Potter!"

One bed over, Draco jerked awake. Harry could dimly see his silhouette turn toward Theodore's bed, and he could well imagine the expression on his face: lips thin, eyes narrow. Nearest the door, Goyle made a sort of unhappy snorfling noise.

"Sorry," said Harry, unfreezing. "Sorry, I'll just..." He slid out of bed and grabbed his copy of _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi._

"It's three in the morning," said Draco's hoarse voice. He peered out at Harry from between the bed curtains.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," said Harry. "I'll go down to the common room and get some reading done. Just... go back to sleep."

Draco sighed, made a vague noise of agreement, and rolled over again. Harry tiptoed down to the common room, where the fire was still burning.

He cracked open the book but he didn't bother reading. Harry was tired. Even Voldemort seemed a little cranky around the edges.

_We'll go through the theory of the Disillusionment Charm, since you're up,_ he said wearily. _Tomorrow you can ask the matron for a Dreamless Sleep potion, if you need one._

Harry sighed, but nodded. He didn't want to talk about the experiences causing his dreams and, happily, neither did Voldemort. So instead they sat quietly and Voldemort explained the surprisingly complicated process of bending light for invisibility.

He was a tireless and astonishingly patient teacher, and never gave Harry the impression he was learning too slowly, or that he was stupid.

_You're as smart as anybody else when you're paying attention_, he said indifferently, picking up on this thought. _Not as smart as me, obviously_, he added, _but nobody is._

Harry wondered what it was like, living life so terribly and painfully self-assured, but the sense of Voldemort's amusement was all the response he received.

_We'll practice tomorrow evening,_ he said eventually. _You don't have to do it well enough to actually become invisible, after all. You just need to avoid recognition. Polyjuice would actually be better,_ he said thoughtfully, _but we don't have time to make it - and Merlin knows who we'd frame. Well, one of the Gryffindors, obviously._

Harry, tired and empty-headed, let Voldemort's train of thought wash over him silently. The voice thought quickly and frequently interrupted itself with new ideas, leaping between them with an agility that was hard to follow. He was, unfortunately, probably every bit as smart as he thought he was.

_Go back to sleep,_ said the voice after a while, _you have double potions first thing, and Snape is very bad-tempered,_ and Harry went back to his dormitory and snuck back to bed.

He could have wished that Voldemort wasn't quite so accurate several hours later. Potions turned out to be pretty awful - not least because they had the class with the Gryffindors, which was in itself a trial.

Harry came down from a hasty breakfast with Draco, Crabbe and Zabini - Goyle and Nott were lingering over their eggs and shooting Harry baleful glowers - to the dungeon room where Potions was held, deep in the bowels of the castle.

"We don't want to be late," Draco said, moving quickly.

That was true enough, but Harry had certainly not heard Draco express any similar concerns regarding other classes. He looked curiously at him, but Draco didn't offer any explanation.

They were in fact several minutes early, arriving outside the locked potions room. While none of the other classrooms were kept locked, the warnings inside Harry's copy of_ One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ suggested that it would be a very prudent idea to prevent unwary students from coming unexpectedly into contact with some of the ingredients in that classroom.

Also waiting outside the classroom was a group of chattering Gryffindors, including a red-headed first year who had to be a Weasley and the familiar face of Hermione Granger.

He did feel a pang of pity for her, though, when it looked as though not even her own Housemates liked her. She seemed to be frantically reciting something to a very bored-looking girl next to her. Everybody else was outright ignoring her.

Harry mentioned as much to Draco as they approached.

"Oh," he said, as though he'd just noticed her. "That's that girl from the train? I suppose even blood traitors know dirt when they see it. Hypocrites," he sniffed. Beside him, Blaise Zabini snorted quietly, but didn't comment.

Harry frowned.

"Or," Draco suggested with a shrug, "maybe it's because she won't shut up for more than two seconds."

Harry wasn't completely sold on this business of muggle born inferiority, but he couldn't deny that the girl was annoying - and he thought it was probably still all right to dislike her on the basis of her personality. "Probably," he muttered, with feeling. Draco smirked at him.

The group of Slytherin boys stopped at the classroom door. A hush fell over the Gryffindors there, except Hermione, who was still whispering quietly to the girl who looked increasingly as though she wished she wasn't there.

Blaise leaned against the wall to one side with affected disinterest. Crabbe fortified his hulking position just behind Draco's left shoulder.

Nobody had bothered to fill Harry in on battle formation - and that was what this felt like.

The tall redhead was eventually propelled to the front of the group of Gryffindors, and somebody elbowed Hermione to make her stop talking.

"You're Harry Potter," said the redhead. He didn't sound really thrilled about it.

"Er," said Harry, "Hello." The way the other Slytherin boys were so carefully placed made him feel like there was definitely going to be a fight, and he wasn't really even sure why. Even Blaise's nonchalant posture seemed tense as a coiled spring. "Yes," he said into the increasingly cold silence, "that's me. And this is Draco -" he gestured with one hand toward the boy next to him.

Draco cut him off with one hand on his wrist. He had long fingers and a strong grip. "He knows my name," he drawled, glancing at Harry with an expression that said Harry's attempt to be polite was adorably quaint. "And there's no need to ask his name - my father told me all the Weasleys have red hair -" he glanced at his head, then his eyes moved disdainfully down the other boy's figure, "- freckles, and more children than they can afford."

Draco's gaze finished up somewhere around Weasley's hem, which was inches too short for him and frayed, clearly a relic from one of his brothers.

Powerfully reminded of Voldemort's description of the same family - _Hmm, Red hair and no money._ - Harry felt the corner of his mouth curve a little.

Weasley's face had gone an unhealthy red, which clashed rather badly with his hair. "Think that's funny, do you, Potter?"

Harry wiped the smile away. "No, not exac-"

"Well, _my_ dad says your family didn't need an excuse to go over to the dark side, Malfoy," he said, obviously stung by the insult to his family. "Doesn't seem to bother Potter, though, does it? Or maybe he just doesn't know?"

Draco never went red - he went white, with a high flush of colour in his cheeks. The expression on his face made Harry's stomach churn.

"Of course I _know_," he snapped back, stepping closer to the blond boy. "Not that it's any of your bloody business."

"Shows how smart you are," Weasley said right back, taking a step forward. "Running around with some slimy git whose dad wants you _dead_."

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr Weasley," said a voice over all of their heads. For all its softness, it was clearly audible, and it caused an immediate hush to fall over the assembled first years. Professor Snape loomed over them all quite suddenly, a tall and angular shadow in the cold dungeon corridor. "For spiteful gossip."

The door had been locked previously, but it must have answered to Snape's touch, because it swung open with an ominous creak. Torches on the walls hissed and sparked to life as their teacher swept into the room and to his desk at the front of the classroom.

The students trailed in, rather reluctantly, after him. Harry wasn't the only one who cast uncertain looks at the foul things floating in jars which lined the room. At least he couldn't smell any of them.

"Sit," said Professor Snape. His voice was hardly more than a whisper, but nobody had trouble hearing him.

They sat.

While Snape seemed to cultivate a feeling of abject quaking terror in his class, the tasks he went through were the same administrative minutiae as the other professors: he got them into the room, lined them up to their desks and went through the roll.

Roll call was interminable and torturous. Professor Snape had the gift of making every child feel like he had done something terribly wrong, for which he would be punished severely, just by pronouncing his name in that soft careful voice. Most of the Slytherins seemed immune to this, but the Gryffindors slowly wilted.

Snape didn't pause or falter in his reading when he arrived at Harry's name, but his eyes settled on Harry, dark and very cold.

Harry looked down at his hands when he answered.

Finally - _finally_ - he called Zabini's name, signalling the end of that ordeal and the beginning of another.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began, and from then on class somehow got worse. His introductory explanation was short, to the point, and not very friendly.

"Mr Weasley," he said abruptly, "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Harry was glad that he'd asked Weasley, because he certainly didn't know. The redheaded boy looked as though he was equally stumped, and less proficient at hiding it. Hermione Granger, though, shoved her hand into the air immediately.

Weasley glanced sideways at her. Sullenly, he said, "I don't know."

"No?" asked Professor Snape softly. He looked around the classroom, ignoring Miss Granger's trembling fingers. "What a pity. Let's try again, shall we? Mr Weasley, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Harry actually knew that one. To be fair, it wasn't knowledge from any of his books, but rather from hours spent working in Aunt Petunia's lawn with nobody but Voldemort for company in his head, learning about common plants and poisons - but he still knew it.

Once again, Hermione Granger's hand shot into the air.

"I don't know," said Weasley, looking mutinous.

"No? Then perhaps Mr Longbottom? Or - Finnegan? Miss Brown?"

Silence.

"Tut, tut," he murmured. He looked to the other side of the classroom. "Nobody?"

He was still ignoring Hermione Granger.

Tentatively, Harry lifted his hand.

A second later, he very much wished he hadn't. Snape's black gaze fell upon him. It lasted a long few seconds. Slowly, he lowered his hand.

"Mr Malfoy," said Snape, moving on as though he'd never noticed Harry at all.

"The stomach of a goat, sir," said Draco smugly.

"Correct," murmured Snape. "A bezoar is a mass found in the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. Five points to Slytherin," he added.

The class continued on in this vein, and their professor spent the rest of it ignoring Harry with a terrible, deliberate focus.

Instead of the long introductory lecture Harry had expected, Professor Snape gave them a sharp talking to regarding the dangers of potion making, then paired them off and set them to making a simple potion to cure boils. Harry was paired with Blaise Zabini, and Draco with Pansy Parkinson.

Professor Snape drifted between workbenches like a cloud of misery, criticising everybody - except Draco, who seemed to be in the happy position of being both Snape's favourite, and actually quite good at what they were doing - and Harry, at whom he did not even glance, although he did make a short, acid comment on the weight of Blaise's dried nettles.

"Mr Malfoy has provided you with an excellent demonstration of the correct way to stew horned slugs," he was saying, just before one of the Gryffindors' cauldrons melted into the floor, spilling a hissing, smoking potion over people's shoes.

Harry was quick to hop up onto his stool and tug Blaise up after him, staring in fascination as the boys who'd been splashed by the potion quickly developed painful, swelling boils.

"Idiot boy!" spat Snape, whirling on the terrified Gryffindor. Harry thought he was the same boy he'd seen before - the boy with the missing toad - but it was hard to tell under the boils.

Snape educated him, at hissing length, on exactly where his potion had gone wrong before allowing his partner to escort the teary-eyed boy to the hospital wing.

_Somehow_, Voldemort mused amid the excitement and commotion of their disastrous first potions class,_ it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that Severus enjoys making children cry in a professional capacity._

Harry didn't know the man at all, but from today's experience he privately thought this was probably a good description of his character.

He set his glass phial of Boil Cure potion on Professor Snape's desk without meeting the man's eyes. He mumbled 'thank you, Professor,' because it was what Blaise and Draco had said to him, and was ignored.

Harry had Friday afternoon off, and he felt wrung out and exhausted by the time they were allowed out of the potions classroom anyway.

Draco seemed so pleased he was nearly glowing with it, which Harry supposed was expected. He was an easy person to please, really: when he received all the praise and accolades he believed he was due, he was cheerful and brilliant; when he was ignored or reprimanded, he made everybody miserable.

He was animated, talking quickly to Crabbe and Goyle, when they left the potions classroom under the cold gaze of their professor, but he dropped back to fall into step with Harry somewhere between there and the Great Hall.

He glanced at Harry, but he didn't say anything.

Harry looked around and discovered that they'd somehow fallen away from the main group of Slytherins. Nobody would hear anything they said right here - which meant that whatever Draco was so specifically not talking about was something he wasn't sure he wanted to bring up with Harry.

It took Harry a few more minutes to think about what might be spinning around in Draco's frequently unfathomable head.

Then he wasn't sure how to bring it up, either, because he didn't want to run the risk of being wrong. He glanced sideways at Draco, who was no longer looking quite so happy.

Harry steeled himself. It would be fine. "About what Weasley said," he said. "It's fine. I don't care."

"Well that's really stupid of you," said Draco, a bit sharply.

_He's right, that is very stupid of you_, said Voldemort.

Harry couldn't say anything in front of Draco, certainly not with his attention so fixed on Harry. Instead he thought very hard:_ well, what do you want me to say? I __**don't**__ care about it. Draco's not about to murder me in my bed._

_Don't shout,_ said Voldemort. _I don't care what you say, just keep him on-side._

Harry sighed. "I don't... _not care_, okay, no. But I knew about it, and I wasn't - I'm not upset with you."

"How?" Draco asked, totally bypassing this implication that he might be affected by somebody else's feelings about him - which wasn't surprising, in hindsight.

"How?" Harry repeated dumbly, sidetracked.

"What, did the muggles you live with tell you?" he snapped scornfully.

"Oh," said Harry, suddenly understanding. "You want to know who was talking about your family behind your back."

Draco made an annoyed noise. "Of course I do. I realise it might be a hard concept for you to grasp, not _having_ any -"

"Shut up about my family, Draco," said Harry, stung.

_Oh, bravo,_ drawled Voldemort.

"Shut _up_," said Harry.

"I didn't _say_ anything," Draco snapped.

"I - I know, sorry," stumbled Harry, rubbing his forehead, where his scar was starting to throb. Of course.

Draco crossed his arms, staring mulishly at Harry from across the corridor. They had lost everybody now, and the corridor was empty. Draco's gaze was sharp and expectant. "Well?"

Harry thought about it. Zabini was annoying and superior, and he could do with being taken down a peg or two - but Harry had a sneaking suspicion that spreading rumours about the Malfoy family - ones they'd evidently tried quite hard to quash - could be quite a bit more dangerous than that.

And it wasn't like he could tell Draco that Voldemort had whispered it to him from inside his head - although if his family had been as loyal to the Dark side as all that, it might be an idea to put on the back-burner.

_No,_ said Voldemort. _We're too vulnerable. Tell nobody._

Of course he wouldn't, Harry thought irritably. God only knew what would happen to him if Voldemort was discovered.

All this just meant that Harry was getting quite good at lying. "I read about it," he sighed.

"You read about it," Draco repeated.

"When I found out I was... this person," he said, waving vaguely at his scar. "I looked into the old court transcripts."

"Oh," said Draco, unfolding his arms. "Then nobody said anything?"

"No," said Harry.

"You must know about Snape, too, then," said Draco, staring at him like he could startle a response out of him with this new information.

"Yes," said Harry. Except he didn't, not really; he knew Snape had been a follower of Voldemort, but he didn't know how he'd stayed out of Azkaban. "Well," he hedged. "Sort of. I know he was..."

It was public information, available in old papers and transcripts to anyone who asked, but he wasn't sure if he should talk about it aloud. A lot of discussion about _anything_ Dark seemed frowned upon, and it seemed like it should be conducted in secret.

"Yes," said Draco, who evidently understood these strange rules. "Keep walking, come on," he said, glancing at the portraits, a few of which were indeed watching them.

Harry nodded, and followed on toward the Great Hall. "I couldn't find how he managed to.."

"Get off the hook?" said Draco drily.

"Well, yes," said Harry. "I mean, obviously he -" Harry pulled himself up short. The rest of the sentence had been 'didn't have as much money as your father, or he wouldn't be working as a teacher,' but he couldn't say that. Draco was obviously concerned that nobody should discuss that matter - and they were both pretending that neither of them knew Lucius had been a genuine follower of the Dark Lord anyway.

It wasn't actually that easy to keep it straight in Harry's head.

He frowned.

Draco was eyeing him.

"I mean, okay, obviously he must have been acquitted without a shadow of a doubt, or nobody would have him teaching a bunch of kids," he said.

Draco gave Harry a short, searching look, like he'd somehow deduced that Harry hadn't said what he was thinking. He sighed. "Yes. Dumbledore vouched for him," he said.

_Dumbledore?_ hissed Voldemort, like a sudden rush of poison in Harry's head.

"Dumbledore?" Harry said, eyebrows rising.

Draco shrugged. "The rest of the transcripts are closed," he said. "So I don't know any more. And I only know that much because father told me."

Harry nodded slowly.

"But I guess you can rest assured that _he's_ not trying to kill you," he drawled as they finally came upon the doorway to the Great Hall.

"I don't think you're trying to kill me," Harry said, rolling his eyes.

"Well," said Draco, glancing at the people milling around. "Good," and he headed over to sit between Crabbe and Goyle.

Harry sat down next to Blaise Zabini, who glanced at him, sniffed once, and then ignored him totally.

_And to think, you could have thrown him straight in the path of Lucius's ire_, Voldemort said.

Harry looked sideways at Blaise.

Oh, well. He ate his lunch and then decided he was going to spend the rest of the afternoon taking a nap.

He went up to the boys' dorm and slept. Nobody bothered to wake him, and when he opened his eyes again it was dark out and there was noise from the common room again, which meant it was either right before or right after dinner. He yawned and scratched his head.

The dorm was silent, empty of everybody except Blaise Zabini, who was sprawled on his bed studiously examining their potions homework.

_You need to practice your Disillusionment Charm,_ Voldemort reminded Harry.

Harry sniffed, rubbed his eyes, and put his glasses back on. "Okay," he said wearily.

Zabini looked up, glanced his way, and returned his eyes to the textbook. "You could get a potion from the matron," he said, not looking at Harry.

"What?" Harry turned to him.

"For the dreams," said Zabini, rather indifferently. "Might not be so weird all the time if you slept once in a while," he suggested.

"Oh," Harry frowned. There were a lot of things to be said about _Zabini's_ weirdness, frankly, but he kept them to himself. "Might do that," he said, feeling very uncommitted about the idea.

Zabini didn't answer him.

"Where am I going?" Harry wondered quietly only a few minutes later, traipsing through the corridors. It was after dinner now. He'd slept much too long, but he didn't mind missing a meal occasionally. He felt rather strange eating so much food three times a day, and more than one Slytherin student had noticed his small portion sizes - even if Parkinson just raised one dark eyebrow and loudly asked about his waistline.

_Somewhere private_, said Voldemort. _There are places in Hogwarts castle which are completely indifferent to the will of the Headmaster. One is the Room of Requirement. The other..._

"Is this a girl's toilet?" Harry asked dubiously. There was a very old-looking Out Of Order sign hung across the door.

_Yes. Go on,_ said Voldemort impatiently.

Reluctantly, Harry pushed open the door. There was water on the floor, and he could hear a girl sobbing in one of the cubicles. Her voice was high and ethereal, and it took him a long, frozen, confused second to realise he was hearing the voice of a ghost. She was crying like her heart was breaking.

_Ah, yes. Poor, sweet, stupid Myrtle,_ sneered the voice.

Harry swallowed. He knew, immediately and horribly, that Voldemort had killed this girl. He'd been no older than Harry had found him in the orphanage: sixteen, thin, quiet and hard-eyed.

The thought brought up memories of screams and flashing light. He flinched and closed his eyes. He hated those memories. He wished they'd just_ go away._

_It was no great loss to wizarding society, I promise,_ he drawled. There was something angry in the voice, like he didn't understand why Harry was so upset, like he resented it, like Harry was doing it just to irritate him.

Myrtle's crying was so loud. Harry covered his ears, trying to block it out so he could think. His heart was racing so hard, thumping against his breastbone like some frantic, struggling animal.

_Breathe_, said Voldemort, suddenly, with a little flash of alarm. _Harry, breathe properly._

He _was_ breathing. It just didn't feel like he was getting any air, and he breathed faster. He felt very dizzy.

Suddenly Harry wanted, more than anything in the world, to get away from that voice. He just didn't want to think about murder. Was that too much to ask?

It seemed like he couldn't avoid thoughts of murder. He couldn't avoid the feeling of being right there, holding the wand. There were spots in his eyes. He blinked hard. He grabbed onto one of the sinks for balance.

_Harry_, said Voldemort, insistently._ Breathe out._

"I - I can't," Harry said stupidly.

_You can_, he said. _Breathe in._ He counted slowly. _And out._ He thought of breaths, forcing the knowledge of their weight and sensation and detail on Harry.

Harry stared blindly at the tap of his sink, feeling horribly stupid, and tried to relearn how to breathe properly.

The soothing sound of Voldemort's voice drowned out Myrtle's heartrending sobs.

"I'm all right," said Harry, finally. He felt more exhausted than he did after any of the Dursley's long, painful punishments.

_Idiot boy_, said Voldemort, sounding - yes, annoyed, but also resigned, like Harry's idiocy was a thing he'd learnt to live with.

"Sorry," said Harry, meaning it.

Voldemort ignored his apology. _Do you remember when you set the boa on the muggle boy?_

Harry remembered the punishment better than the event, but the soft hiss of the snake was still pretty clear. He nodded.

_Think about that. Look at the mark on the tap in front of you, and tell it to open._

There was, if Harry was looking carefully, a tiny snake carved into the side of the tap he was leaning over. He squinted at it. "Open," he said.

Voldemort's impatience was nearly a physical thing._ This won't work if you can't say it properly. You can speak Parseltongue, you must be able to. Snakes don't just talk to anybody._

Harry frowned. He focused hard on the tap, and this time when he opened his mouth, the noise that came out was an incredible, sibilant hiss.

The sink melted away into the floor. A foot in front of where Harry was standing was now a dark hole leading down into the plumbing.

He stared at it.

"Where are we going?" he said quietly. It wasn't quite audible over Myrtle's relentless crying.

_This_, said Voldemort with a strange reverence, _is the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets._

* * *

This chapter took slightly longer because I got distracted writing vile smut elsewhere. No, I'm not sorry.


	7. Chapter 7

"And so this amazing secret chamber," Harry was saying some time later, walking cautiously in the dark, "Salazar Slytherin just happened to build the entrance_ in the loo?_" His voice echoed in the dark, and it seemed to be the only living thing down there.

Harry had been expecting spiders and rats, but nothing moved. Nothing breathed. It was just Harry and the sad little glow at the tip of his wand and the occasional crunch of something underfoot.

_The girls' toilet wasn't built there until well after Slytherin was dead_, Voldemort said. _It was built over, and inevitably the Chamber assimilated its entrance into the other parts of the castle. That's how it works._

Harry nodded. He understood that it was a great privilege to come down to the Chamber at all, but he couldn't help but feel that he could have practised the Disillusionment Charm just as easily in an abandoned classroom.

_Probably,_ Voldemort agreed,_ but there are other aspects to the plan that require us to come down here. And nobody else can find it._

"How come? All you have to do is ask the tap."

_Parseltongue,_ said Voldemort loftily, _is not a common ability. It's the last gift of Salazar Slytherin. Nearly all known Parselmouths have been in our family._

There was a lot of information there: that Slytherin had been a parselmouth, that Voldemort was a living descendant of that Hogwarts Founder, and most importantly -

"Are we related?" Harry wondered, blinking stupidly at the dimly glowing tip of his wand.

_No_, said Voldemort. He paused. Then: _Well, we would be, several hundred years ago, because the pure families all are. But not recently._

Harry was surprised to feel a tiny pang of loss at that. However briefly, he'd been excited by the idea of having a family, any family. He had a second's worry that this hint of neediness would repulse Voldemort, but the presence in Harry's head seemed to take it in stride.

_Of course,_ he murmured._ Anybody would be honoured to share blood with me._

"Oh," said Harry, a little sarcastically. "Of course."

_No_, he said after a few silent moments walking in the dimness. _Either your ability to speak Parseltongue is a throwback to an past generation - unlikely, since it's been unbroken in the Slytherin line - or my presence here has changed you. That's more likely - you've been growing with me since you were very young, and children are incredibly adaptable._

"So, it's really your power?" Harry asked.

There was a pause while Voldemort considered that question._ It's yours,_ he said eventually. _But you wouldn't have it without me._

Harry thought that he probably wouldn't miss it very much. "Are we nearly there yet?"

_Soon_.

Harry sighed.

They did eventually make it to the chamber proper. The room was huge, and supported by towering pillars wrapped in intricate stone serpents. The chamber had flooded at some point; there were troughs of stagnant water where the stonework was uneven, and the moss gave everything a dim greenish cast in the low light.

Harry was disappointed that it didn't seem to contain many secrets at all. He had expected a place named the_ chamber of secrets_ to have a hidden stash of lore, or at least an old chest full of blackmail material. But he couldn't actually see any secrets of any kind. In fact -

"It's pretty empty," said Harry, looking thoughtfully up at the big stone face of Salazar Slytherin. It seemed like a reasonably good likeness, if the portrait in the Slytherin common room could be believed.

_Not many secrets, no_, said Voldemort. _Just one big one._ He refused to elaborate on this, telling Harry he'd be much too distracted by this enormous, exciting secret in the chamber.

Harry was pretty sure he was making it up.

Voldemort laughed at him. He actually laughed: a mean but gleeful laugh that made Harry's head feel like there were bubbles in it. He couldn't help but smile at the feeling, even though it was not a very nice laugh.

_I'll tell you when you can make yourself invisible,_ Voldemort promised.

"All right," sighed Harry.

They got started.

Harry wouldn't go so far as to suggest that it was a total waste of time, exactly, but Disillusionment Charms were extremely advanced magic for an eleven year old.

_It's not hard,_ said Voldemort after a few hours of motivated but unsuccessful practice. _You're just not very good at it yet._

Harry did not understand. He'd been excellent at the other things he'd learnt with Voldemort's help. He excelled at basic transfigurations and charms, and even his potion this morning hadn't seemed too terribly bad.

_Those have all been age-appropriate tasks. This is a charm that's not usually learnt before fifth year. It requires better control and more finesse than any of the magic you have been learning in classes. You need to practice magic that requires fine control to get this right. Now try again,_ he added, less patiently.

"It's... frustrating," said Harry, but he did try again.

He tried again over and over and over, and the best he could do was to make his edges faintly blurry in the dim light.

"I'd better be in before curfew," he said finally, annoyed that he hadn't gotten it right yet. "But tomorrow's a Saturday, so I could practice again."

_The other children will get suspicious if you disappear too often,_ Voldemort mused. _I'll give you some exercises in control for tomorrow, and you can return here to practice on Sunday._

Harry didn't say it, but he was a little bit relieved to hear that. He didn't enjoy feeling frustrated and unsuccessful. It did make him determined to do better, but continuing with the same approach as they'd used tonight seemed like an exercise in futility.

"So what's the secret?" he asked, traipsing back through the dusty dry pipes.

_When you can make yourself invisible,_ said Voldemort, _I'll tell you._

Harry sighed. "Okay. I'm sorry I'm not better at it," he added.

_You're doing as well as I could have expected,_ said Voldemort indifferently. Harry was forced to accept this assessment as the truth because Voldemort would never lie to him to make him feel better - not out of any kind of respect, more because he wouldn't see the point. Sparing another person's feelings was simply beyond Voldemort's scope.

Saturday didn't seem like a very interesting day to Harry. There were no classes, so there was no new magic to learn, and the other students seemed occupied with things Harry didn't really understand: games of gobstones and exploding snap, pranks, quidditch, and of course, letters from home.

Most of the Slytherins were unmercifully spoilt, Harry decided, looking at the mail glide into the Great Hall on Saturday morning. Most of the mail birds were owls, so they had soft feathers and flew silently. Almost every other person at the Slytherin table received some kind of package from their parents, and immediately began a sort of subtle competition as to how valuable the gifts were. A girl in Harry's year named Millicent was rather thoroughly scorned because her mother had the audacity to send her a box of _home made_ cookies.

"Well, really," said Draco, who was sorting through a selection of sweets and somehow managing to make it look as though he didn't care if the others noticed or not, "one usually has elves for that sort of thing."

Harry was familiar now with the concept of house elves, although he had yet to see one - the sign of a good elf, he supposed - so he didn't need to ask for clarification on that. He glanced sideways at the blond boy. "What if she just likes baking?"

Draco paused, scrunching his nose, as though he couldn't imagine a person who enjoyed baking. "Bit perverse, isn't it?" he hedged, glancing sideways at Harry. "I mean, a witch who likes servants' work?"

Not for the first time, Harry wondered what kind of alternative universe Draco had grown up in - but then he glanced down at the beautifully monogrammed lambskin parchment the letter from his mother had arrived on, and thought he might already know the answer to that question.

Draco, of course, mistook his glance entirely. "You can have one, if you like," he said, graciously waving one of his great bounty of sweets at Harry.

"I was looking at the parchment, actually," he said, but Harry wasn't in the business of looking a gift-horse in the mouth. He accepted a little piece of something he'd never seen before and nibbled at it.

"You are _so _odd," said Draco, glancing down at his letter. "It's parchment. You write on it. _You_ write on it, actually, every day."

Harry smiled and declined to respond in favour of inspecting the thing he'd been given. It looked like a sort of cookie, and tasted overwhelmingly of almond, rosewater and some unfamiliar spices. "This is good," he said.

"Well, yes. Obviously," said Draco, eyes fixed back on his letter.

Harry did his homework and practised the exercises Voldemort made him learn. These weren't very exciting either, just a series of tedious visualisations. Harry wasn't sure how much they were helping him control his magic, but they certainly helped him sleep.

_I'm glad you find important magical instruction so relaxing_, drawled Voldemort upon waking him from a light doze.

"Sorry," mumbled Harry, who had still not slept very well and was not feeling very sorry at all.

Harry spent a lot of the day in the library. He buried himself in his Charms text, because going over the basics could certainly not hurt his chances of performing the Disillusionment Charm well.

_It wouldn't hurt to cultivate the idea of yourself as an irredeemable bookworm,_ Voldemort mused. _It will go a way to explaining your surprising aptitude in classes._

Since the only other student spending as much time as he was in the library that day was Hermione Granger, Harry wasn't really excited by this advice. He had a sneaking suspicion that she was in the library not just because she liked reading - which she undoubtedly did, really - but because nobody else wanted to talk to her.

Harry didn't really think he would enjoy cultivating an image as a pathetic, lonely swot.

_How could you possibly be lonely?_ Voldemort wondered, as though Harry might have forgotten somehow that there was an extra person living in his head.

He sighed and went back to reading.

Despite his initial boredom with the exercises, Harry found that they did pay off rather well. On Sunday he spent several very long hours in the cold and dreary chamber of secrets, and by dinner time he could obscure himself just about well enough to be unrecognisable.

Voldemort seemed surprised at how quickly he'd picked up on it, but he attributed this more to his own teaching than to any talent of Harry's.

"Does this mean we're ready?" Harry asked, examining his own blurry hand against the ugly backdrop of Slytherin's enormous stone face. His hand looked like a strangely diffuse white blob, which took on the atmospheric colours at the edges.

Voldemort hesitated. _No_, he decided regretfully after a long moment of reflection._ If you were an adult wizard... but there would be no chance if you were caught. They would be able to guess your age like this, and that would narrow it down too far. We __**must**__ be stealthy; it is our first and last recourse._ He sounded as though this was a great source of frustration to him.

_It is_, he agreed, sensing Harry's thought. _But there's no way to make you older and stronger and more knowledgeable except to wait. So we'll wait._

And wait they did: much to Harry's shame and anxiety, it took him nearly a fortnight of steady application to arrive at a passable form of the Disillusionment Charm.

It was not perfect, functioning more as camouflage than as true invisibility. In motion, Harry appeared as a vague amorphous blur; nobody would fail to notice his movements, but neither would they be able to detect his height, sex, age or colouring - and certainly nobody would see his features. If he was still, he was nearly unnoticeable.

Harry could tell that Voldemort wasn't entirely pleased, but he just didn't know how to make it better.

_Many adult wizards never learn how to perform that charm any better than this_, said Voldemort, more as though he was trying to convince himself._ It will suffice._ He still didn't seem very happy, but then, he never really seemed happy. Contentment was a brief and fickle thing for Voldemort.

_Stop worrying about it,_ Voldemort ordered. Oddly, this made Harry feel better.

"Library again?" wondered Draco when Harry returned to the common room that evening. He was writing a letter home and did not look up.

"Finishing my History of Magic homework." Harry flopped onto the other end of the long leather couch. He had, in fact, finished the work earlier that night. As he predicted, Draco's eyes glazed at the phrase 'history of magic'. Harry didn't blame him: it was easily the most boring class they had, which was a reflection on their extremely boring teacher.

Professor Binns was a ghost. The school rumour mill said he'd bored himself to death. And Voldemort said that if he _had_ bored himself to death - which he wasn't ruling out - he'd done it sometime in the eighteen hundreds, and the syllabus hadn't improved since.

_He was just as boring when he taught my year._

Harry frowned. It seemed like a poor job on behalf of the school to allow such a very bad teacher to continue teacher continue with the subject - but then they let Snape teach, didn't they, and he made half the Hufflepuff firsties wet themselves.

_You're still learning potions, though,_ Voldemort pointed out. _No matter how much you dislike him, you do learn in Severus's class. No, there's a more insidious problem behind Binns' incompetence. You won't learn about anything that occurred after eighteen twenty, and you'll be too bored to care about any of the events that shaped Wizarding society into what it is now. Few Hogwarts students learn about the politics behind laws and conventions as we now know them, and since this suits the Headmaster and the Ministry perfectly, nothing is done._

_You mean that nobody learns why things are the way they are, and because it's a class everybody looks down on, nobody bothers asking questions,_ Harry thought back.

_You're shouting_, said Voldemort. Harry had yet to get the hang of thinking something back in words rather than a mishmash of information. _But yes - and nobody learns about our older traditions. Three quarters of the students here would never have heard of the ritual you'll perform on Samhain._

Harry puzzled that over for a second, watching the motion of Draco's fancy eagle feather quill as he penned his letter.

Harry thought it was a bit of a stretch to suggest that Professor Binns' terrible classes were the instrument of some grand conspiracy to make Hogwarts students fall in line with a specific political position, but -

_That's not what I said,_ said Voldemort with a frustrated sting._ Just that they're part of a system. Little things, insidious and seemingly benign, that interlock and work together to create a society that bans magic and that panders to muggles and muggle-borns. Where people like that sad little Granger person can learn every spell in the world, swan about an entitled know-it-all, and never be forced to confront her own ignorant disrespect for witches of five times her consequence._

Harry frowned hard. There didn't seem to be much good excuse for the systematic separation of wizarding children from their heritage. He agreed, in a way, and he didn't necessarily like agreeing with Voldemort. Voldemort, as far as Harry could tell, was incapable of most proper feelings and had no better nature: the best you could hope to get out of him was icy logic and occasional bouts of fairly cruel humour. But he was swayed, he did agree.

_Of course you do,_ said Voldemort, either not noticing or disregarding Harry's thoughts about his character, i_t's a completely reasonable view. Being unreasonable would be to say: 'we don't care if anybody learns about history or politics, because it's irrelevant and it's probably best if they don't know anyway'._

That _did_ seem unreasonable.

Harry frowned harder.

"Wow," said Draco, who had finally glanced up from his letter to Harry's face, which must have looked quite unhappy. "Was it that bad?"

Harry blinked away from the quill, which was now laying still in Draco's hand. "What?" he said. "Oh, no. More just..." He wondered if he should mention his thoughts to Draco, but Voldemort seemed totally indifferent. Well, Harry was sick of lying all the time, anyway. "Annoyed about Professor Binns's class."

Draco had begun to proof-read his letter. He made a face at Harry's words. "He's pretty awful," he agreed.

"Well... more that it's awful for students who don't get to learn anything about Wizarding history," Harry said. "I'll bet there's a lot of common knowledge that people who aren't from - you know, families like yours - don't learn at all."

Draco glanced up. "Well," he said slowly, setting his quill down, "I suppose. You mean people like, er, other half bloods, I suppose?"

Harry nodded quickly. They'd both determined that it wasn't a good idea to keep reminding the other Slytherins that Harry had been raised by muggles. "And not just me. The Weasleys are meant to be pure bloods, aren't they?"

Draco made a face like he'd sniffed a dungbomb. "Well, I _suppose_," he said grudgingly. "Although they're coarse and poor and _blood-traitors_ and not good enough to eat off our floor," he added quickly.

In the back of his head, Voldemort laughed.

"Yes, but they still _are_," said Harry, waving this comment off. "I bet Ronald Weasley doesn't know _anything_ about history or - or how to light an Imbolc fire, or -" he realised that he was speaking louder than necessary and cut himself off.

He certainly had Draco's attention, though. The blond was nodding. "My father says they _should_ be teaching that sort of thing at Hogwarts, because you can't trust people's families to be good enough to teach them. But it's not.." he stopped, looking for the right word. "It's not very fashionable, I suppose. People think it's all a bit - you know, Dark. I don't think most of the kids _here_ would know how to light an Imbolc fire," he added in a lower voice, gesturing vaguely around at the common room.

The voice in Harry's head felt appalled and cranky. "Isn't Imbolc the festival of spring?" said Harry. "How is it supposed to be Dark Magic to celebrate fluffy new baby lambs and blackthorn flowers?"

"No idea." Draco shook his head. "I don't think they'd be teaching people about that in History of Magic, anyway," he said. "Although my father does say he'd like to see Binns sacked," he added thoughtfully.

"No," agreed Harry, "but if the class wasn't such nonsense we might learn why we don't still do it."

"We do," said Draco, sounding a little stung. "Or, well, _we_ do, anyway. My mother lights the fire every year, and we stay up for it all night - although I'm not really supposed to talk about it much."

For once, there was a moment of perfect synchronicity of thoughts in Harry's head: _This is really stupid,_ thought Harry, with emphasis. _Yes_, agreed Voldemort.

"I think it's great," said Harry, firmly.

"Obviously," said Draco, distracted again by his letter. While he seemed very fond of his parents, and a little bit too proud of his family, contact with them also seemed to generate a great deal of anxiety for him.

Harry nodded, and then got up to watch Parkinson thoroughly and brutally trounce Nott at chess.

That night, when he went to bed, Harry remembered something. He pulled his bed curtains tightly shut and whispered much too quietly for his dorm mates to hear. "You said you'd tell me what the secret was."

_So I did_, said Voldemort, who sounded pleased that Harry had remembered. _On the weekend, we will go down to the chamber again, and I will show you._

"Why only the weekend?" whispered Harry.

_Because we'll be putting our plan into action then, and it will work better if the students aren't in classes, so nobody will know where they're meant to be._

Satisfied, Harry removed his glasses and settled in for the night.

He rose with the sun on Saturday morning, feeling - for once - as though he'd had enough sleep.

_Disillusionment Charm,_ said Voldemort, explaining:_ we don't want you to be noticed at all - if possible, we'll have you back in the Slytherin common room before the distraction ends._

Harry dressed and cast the Disillusionment Charm upon himself. It felt as though he'd cracked an egg over the top of his skull and the yolk was trickling down in long uncomfortable rivulets. He shivered. The feeling was a little gross, but it did indicate that he'd done the spell correctly. Then he snuck out of the dungeons and made his way into the castle proper.

"I say," said one of the portraits as he passed. "What is that?"

"A student pulling a prank, I expect," murmured another sleepily.

_A more circuitous route will be necessary, then_, said Voldemort. _We don't want them to narrow it down to a Slytherin student if somebody thinks to ask the portraits._

Harry thought this was a little bit paranoid, but he did as he was told. Several of the paintings he passed commented on the strange shapeless blur of his incorrectly-performed spell, but none of them recognised a student under it.

By the time Harry arrived at the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, the sun was well risen, and by the time he got down to the chamber proper, the early risers were probably heading down to eat breakfast in the Great Hall

"Okay," said Harry, looking around at the greenish gloom of the chamber. "What now?"

_Now I want you to do exactly as I say. You have to close your eyes for this and it is very, very important that you do not open them again until I tell you. Do you understand?_

"Yeah," said Harry, nodding. He closed his eyes tightly, feeling immediately more vulnerable and exposed.

_Good. That's good. Now imagine a snake. The most lifelike snake you can think of. That's a terrible snake_, he added at Harry's imagining. _Like this._ The image he sent to Harr was of a long, coiled python with a pale belly and a blunt nose.

Harry held onto the image. "All right," he said.

_Repeat after me_, said the voice.

"_Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four_." It came out as a slow, musical hiss.

There was the sound of rock grating on rock, and Harry dearly wished to open his eyes to see what was going on.

_Do not,_ said Voldemort urgently. _This is very dangerous._

Harry didn't like his tone of voice, and his insistence made him want to open his eyes even more. But he fought down that instinctive urge and kept them tightly shut.

Something slithered. The sound of dry scales on rock was extremely loud in the darkness behind Harry's closed eyelids. He had the idea, gotten from Voldemort and embellished by imagination, of something huge and poisonous green slithering out from between Salazar's open lips.

Harry swallowed and tried to ignore the way his heart rate suddenly skyrocketed.

_Don't be frightened_, advised Voldemort, who seemed more excited than scared. _She won't hurt you. Although she can only be controlled by somebody with Slytherin's gift._

Harry licked his dry lips. That was okay. He could definitely talk to the huge snake. The image Voldemort had of her was very clear. She was a sublime thing, beautiful and terrible.

The slithering stilled and Harry felt her shadow fall over him.

_It's a formality that you tell her to serve you,_ said Voldemort.

Harry nodded tightly. "_Serve me, Great Serpent, in the name of Salazar Slytherin," _he hissed aloud.

The enormous snake moved. Harry couldn't see her, but the weight of her hung heavy in the air, looming over him. There was a long, considering pause from the snake.

_You are not my master_, she hissed.

Harry froze.

_...bollocks,_ said Voldemort.

_But it has been a long time since I ate,_ she added, _and you are very warm. I can feel you from here._

Her enormous bulk swayed closer. Almost sleepily, she murmured: _let me... just a taste..._

There was a frozen silence in Harry's mind, which was more frightening even than the great snake's hot, sweet breath on his face.

For the first time in months, there was nothing but Harry.

"Voldemort?" he asked in a tiny, stilted whisper.

_Turn away,_ said Voldemort, calm and certain, _then open your eyes_. Harry turned. He opened his eyes. The shadow the snake cast covered most of the chamber, obliterating his own little silhouette._ Do not look her in the face,_ Voldemort warned, and then: _Run._

Harry ran.

Behind him, the snake's sleepy mumble turned into a cruel hiss: _let me taste! Let me tear..!_

Harry sprinted behind the stone pillars, weaving in and out. He panted and raced.

_Faster!_ Voldemort urged at the sound of rustling scales as the snake surged behind him, gaining momentum with all of her terrible weight.

The tunnel to the girls' loo was straight and steep. Harry abandoned all his defensive manoeuvres in favour of a dead sprint, and ignored Voldemort's panicked thought that they were never going to make it.

One foot in front of the other. Harry focused on moving his feet as fast as they would go: breath gasping, muscles burning. His footsteps sounded loudly on the stone floors and threw mad echoes back to him - and over that was the awful slither and hiss of pursuit.

_Let me rip..!_

Light bloomed ahead.

The exit!

Jaws snapped at Harry's back. He felt the gentle scrape of teeth through his hair, not quite enough to break the skin.

Harry's mind blanked. Blind panic gripped him, and adrenalin gave strength to his flagging muscles. He hit the lip of the tunnel and hauled himself up, barely pausing in his momentum, and tumbled onto the floor of the girls' loo.

"Wha - Fred, look at this thing," said a voice, much too close. Harry looked up into a freckled face framed by red hair, which was squinting down at Harry's Disillusioned form.

Behind him, Harry saw an identical freckled boy, rather inexplicably holding a toilet seat. "What do you suppose -" the voice cut off in a choked noise. Then he screamed.

_Don't look back!_

Harry scrambled. He could hear the great murderous snake thrashing in the pipe, hear her dry scales as she writhed onto the tile floor.

He raced forward, nearly slammed into the door, pulled it open and shot through into the deserted hallway.

Harry turned left down the corridor. In the bathroom behind him, he heard screaming and the serpent's confused hissing as she was confronted with new prey. He felt a brief but sharp pang of conscience and glanced over his shoulder. Perhaps he should -

_Idiot_, seethed Voldemort in a low and deadly voice. _First floor. Dumbledore's office_. **_Now_**.

Harry gasped at the strength of the command. He started off down the corridor as though the hounds of hell were after him.

Behind him, the door burst open and one of the twins bolted out through it, shrieking bloody murder. The other followed, and together they turned right - and the enormous coils of the great serpent followed them, snapping and hissing.

Harry saw one of them turn stiff and drop - just drop, like a stone, like a puppet whose strings had been cut - and he shuddered at the awful implication of that, but he kept on moving, going in the opposite direction to the enormous cacophony of yelling and screaming and murderous hissing.

Harry's form under the Disillusionment Charm was obscured better the slower he moved, so he dropped back to a walk and made his way cautiously to the first floor.

Getting into Dumbledore's office was almost absurdly simple after all that: Harry saw the old man looking very distracted and worried on his way to the office, and he froze and stuck to the wall, waiting for him to pass. The headmaster's eyes didn't even flicker over him, fixed on some distant problem.

Probably, Harry thought, the reports of a great filthy snake trying to eat the students.

He stopped outside, gave the password in a whisper to the gargoyle, and trotted up to the office.

"Who's there?" demanded a portrait immediately upon his entry, prompting a general uproar from those on the walls. One of them immediately left to fetch the headmaster, rushing to alert the other portraits in the castle. The alarm would spread like wildfire.

Harry, however, didn't intend to be there when Dumbledore returned. He was safe from recognition behind his charm, and he slipped behind the grand old desk, grabbed the clothbound book, and dashed for the door.

_Don't run,_ said Voldemort when they arrived back in the commonly used corridors. It was still too early for many of the students to be up and about, but the portraits were awhirl with whispers and movement.

Harry walked calmly to the library and then dispelled his Disillusionment Charm quietly and behind the cover of the shelves.

He checked out five of the most boring history books he could find under the disapproving but unsuspecting gaze of Madam Pince, and then slipped his new book between them when he left.

By the time Professor McGonagall's disembodied, booming voice announced to the school at large that Hogwarts was in a state of emergency and all students were to return to their common rooms at once, Harry was almost halfway there.

"The library, Potter?" said Nott as he joined those students coming out of the Great Hall, eyeing the leather-bound_ Hogwarts: A History_ on top of the pile Harry was clutching. "Don't you ever do anything interesting?"

"No," said Harry, wishing fervently that this was true, "Not really."

They were herded into the Slytherin common room under the dark and critical gaze of Professor Snape. Harry sat quietly by the fire, listening to the dark, satisfied murmur in the back of his head, and tried to disguise how badly his hands were trembling.


	8. Chapter 8

They Slytherins all crowded into their common room. Under Snape's cold eyes, nobody dared to voice even the hint of a complaint.

"What's happened, Professor?" asked one of the Prefects once the whole house was packed into the room.

"Is everybody accounted for?" Snape asked. He didn't sound very happy, but then he never did.

The Prefects did a swift head count and agreed that every Slytherin had indeed made it back to the common room. Harry wasn't sure what would have happened to him had he taken longer, been later. He dreaded the thought of Snape interrogating him in front of all these people.

He put the books on the floor between his toes and tucked his hands between his knees to disguise their faint tremor.

"There is a beast loose in the school," said Professor Snape with no further preamble. His voice was low, but nobody ever spoke over him; rather, conversations stopped and people strained to hear. "It has attacked some students - foolhardy Gryffindors -" he said this as though it was a very great failing of these students, being attacked, "and all students are to remain in their common rooms or dorms until the threat has been dealt with."

He looked around with those sharp, cold eyes. "While I cannot imagine that any of you would be so stupid as to take such a risk, I will tell you that any student found leaving the safety of the common room and dorms will face very dire consequences indeed. You have been warned." He turned and left, huge dark cloak sweeping dramatically in his wake.

As soon as the wall reappeared behind him, the students broke out in complaints - mostly, Harry learnt, that Quidditch tryouts had been interrupted. He hadn't realised that they were held so early.

There was a lot of noise - with everybody packed into the one common room that was guaranteed - and there seemed to be a lot of faces and words and people moving. It was disorienting.

Harry felt very disconnected from it all.

"Potter?"

He looked up into Pansy Parkinson's face. She was crouching in front of him, which Harry had not noticed amidst all of the movement around them.

Harry blinked. "Hello," he said.

"Hi," she said back, uncertainly. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," said Harry.

"Only," said Parkinson carefully, "you're shaking."

He was, he realised. The tiny tremors in his hands had built up into a tremble down his limbs. That wasn't good. Somebody might think he was behaving strangely.

"I'm all right," he said after too long a pause. "Only I think I'll go up to bed," added his own distant voice through his lips.

Parkinson's mouth moved, but the words were a jumble. It was as if his brain had given up on processing everything but the very simplest stimuli. No other information would be accepted.

Harry got up. Somebody said his name but it was very far away and it didn't seem very important.

Books. He had to get the books. He picked them up.

He walked to the steps. One at a time, he climbed them. He went into the first year dorm, climbed his bed and pulled the curtains after himself.

Voldemort was saying something, but he didn't pay any attention. He sat in the middle of the bed, books scattered around, and stared at his hands.

They were still shaking, which was stupid. He was well and truly out of danger. The teachers would deal with the snake. He had not been caught. He had the book and Voldemort would be pleased. There was no need for this teeth-chattering, heart-tripping unhappiness.

Eventually he felt cold, so he crawled under the blankets, and whatever happened next he didn't remember. All he knew was that he woke up groggy and unhappy hours later, because of Draco's cold white hand on his shoulder.

"Harry?" the other boy was saying.

Harry blinked up at him. "Hi," he said, fumbling in the blankets for his glasses, which had been on his face when he fell asleep.

Draco picked them out from the pattern on the coverlet and handed them to Harry. "It's dinner time," he said. "You've been sleeping all day. If you're that sick, we should probably tell Professor Snape."

"All day?" Harry glanced toward the window enchanted into the wall of their dungeon-level dorm. The sun was setting outside. He sighed. "I think I'm all right now," he said finally, because he wasn't actually sick and the prospect of having to talk to Professor Snape about it was more than enough motivation to get out of bed. "I was just tired. I'll be down in a moment."

Draco nodded, and disappeared outside his bed curtains.

Harry looked at his hands. They'd stopped shaking. Small mercies.

_Are you quite done having hysterics?_ asked Voldemort scathingly. Harry's head hurt like he'd been yelling, but he certainly didn't remember it.

He fumbled amid the books on his bed, finally locating the important one. _We'll read it when I get back_, he promised, ignoring Voldemort's crankiness. He shoved_ Magick Moste Evile_ under the covers, leaving the boring history books scattered artfully around. Hopefully that would do while he got something to eat.

They did not go down to the Great Hall for dinner: instead food appeared on the low tables in the Slytherin common room. Seats were scarce, so Harry sat on the floor near the stairs and picked at his peas. He wasn't very hungry, but he knew he should have been.

The main topic of discussion in the common room was, of course, the attack. Harry listened quietly. Information had come to the Slytherin Prefects in a bargain struck with a portrait, so naturally there were about six versions of the story, some of which were wildly incorrect.

All that anybody seemed to know was that a monster had appeared - somehow - on the third floor, and that Fred and George Weasley had been attacked by it.

"Probably dead," said one third year boy gleefully, making Harry's gut churn. "Good riddance."

He knew without a doubt that if the twins were dead, he'd feel responsible. Probably because he _was_ responsible. Harry chewed his lip.

"Don't be stupid," said a girl next to him scathingly. "If they were dead they wouldn't be in the infirmary. They'd be sending their bodies back to their family - such as it is."

That wasn't a particularly soothing thought, either. He hadn't meant to _hurt_ anybody. Voldemort hadn't intended to hurt anybody either, he thought, because the voice also seemed bothered by it.

_When I kill somebody,_ said Voldemort peevishly in response to this thought,_ it's not an accident._

The very idea of such disorder seemed to eat at him. He'd obviously thought they could control the snake somehow, and simply been very, very wrong.

_**I**__ can control the snake_, he said defensively when asked._ It was hidden away to be a weapon for the direct line of Salazar Slytherin, all of whom have been parselmouths; that should have been all that was required... but it must be something else as well. Some combination of blood and parseltongue..._

Voldemort's thoughts wandered off for a while then, leaping agilely from thought to thought, and Harry didn't bother following them, since he knew from experience the voice wouldn't slow itself down to explain for Harry's benefit.

Harry resolved to keep an ear out for what had happened to the twins. Voldemort spared a scornful thought for this resolution, but Harry ignored him. He felt too guilty not to. To accidentally set a great dirty snake on somebody and not find out if they'd survived seemed like too big a loose end to leave untied, just for his own peace of mind.

The common room was noisy and packed, but eventually Harry found himself sandwiched between Goyle and Draco on one long leather couch. He left his dinner half-finished even though he hadn't eaten all day, and listened to the other first years argue about what kind of monster it might have been instead. Nobody seemed to know what it actually was, and some of their ideas seemed pretty wild to Harry. Nobody even mentioned a giant snake.

Snape looked in on them once that Harry saw, stepping in just to peer critically around at his students. He had a scrawny, disgruntled looking rooster tucked beneath one arm, and was looking very strange with a pair of mirrored sunglasses perched on the bridge of his oversize nose.

_One of the portraits must have given a good description,_ said Voldemort thoughtfully. _That's it, then: either it will retreat to the chamber and return to sleep, or die. The crow of the rooster will be fatal to it._

Suddenly the rather unhappy bird tucked beneath Snape's arm was much more interesting.

_We can always breed another,_ murmured the voice. They were easily bred: a chicken egg, hatched under a toad.

Harry thought that was a really, colossally terrible idea.

_We'll see_, said Voldemort.

It was only about nine when Harry's tiredness caught up with him, and he found himself being shaken off Goyle's shoulder. The bigger boy had a faintly bemused look on his face.

"Bed for me, then," said Harry, yawning widely.

"Maybe you _should_ talk to Professor Snape," Draco said, eyeing him. "You did nothing but sleep today, you can't be tired already."

"I didn't sleep well," said Harry with a shrug. "And I was up early in the library. G'night," he added, heading for their dorm. He could feel the other Slytherins watching him as he ascended the steps again, and was glad to be able to close the door on their collective gaze.

He knew he was acting suspicious, but he was tired.

_The book_, said Voldemort, sharp and demanding, as he crawled into bed.

"All right," he sighed, digging through his sheets. Magick Moste Evile was exactly where he'd left it. He drew his curtains closed and tied them shut, then examined the faded cloth of its cover.

He opened it with a dusty crack and found himself looking at a hand-written manuscript. It had obviously been penned before the standardisation of English.

_Just look at the pages_, Voldemort said firmly. _It won't matter how well you can understand it. Besides, you're terribly squeamish, and I'd like to sleep sometime this year._

There was no page of contents and no introductory text: it launched straight into a recipe for a potion on the first page. Curiously, Harry took the time to decipher it. With dawning horror, he read:

"Choose the carcass of a red man, whole, clear without blemish, of the age of twenty four years, that hath been hanged, broke upon a wheel, or thrust-through, having been for one day and night exposed to the open air, in a serene time," and then it all went a bit downhill as the recipe described the process by which the body would be cut into neat slices, sprinkled with myrrh and alloes, macerated in spirit of wine and then hung up to dry like smoked pork.

"Somehow I don't think we're going to learn that in Potions class," said Harry, swallowing a mouthful of sick bile.

He glanced down to where the author recommended a potioneer keep a bone saw for this grim work, as a Severing Charm, while effective, was likely to impact the quality of the ingredients.

Harry, who had seen the Severing Charm on their first year syllabus, had a sudden and vivid imagining of applying it to a person. His stomach wasn't really thrilled by the idea, and it made its unhappiness known by doing energetic flips.

_I did tell you,_ said Voldemort, with surprising patience._ But you shouldn't turn your nose up, anyway. It makes a very powerful ingredient in healing potions, and it's an awful lot cheaper and easier to get - and keeps longer - than phoenix tears._

Harry could accept this intellectually, but the careful, minute instructions in the book brought the process of it into a sharp and terrible relief.

He was no longer so curious about the contents of the book, and turned the pages when prompted by Voldemort - who was using Harry's eyes, but read and processed the information a great deal faster.

He couldn't avoid picking up a thing or two - a curse for crippling by the incantation _claudus_, a recipe for a healing potion calling for the blood and skin of a unicorn - but mostly he tried to stare down at the paper and think about something else, even when his curiosity dragged at him.

In fact, almost the only thing in the book that seemed least vile and terrible was the very bit Voldemort was interested in: a discussion on the process by which a witch or wizard could slice up and seal away parts of his or her soul.

After skimming the rest of the book, committing a single murder didn't really seem that awful. And, if Harry was right, the book promised that this horcrux thing was a remedy for _death_.

"It makes you immortal?"

_More or less,_ Voldemort said distractedly. _Turn the page._

Harry turned the page. This was by far the most densely theoretical part of the book. There were no brisk instructions for chopping or grinding or wand movement here, and even the bits he could actually read were far beyond Harry's full understanding.

_That's it,_ Voldemort said eventually. _We're done._

Harry blinked. There were plenty more pages of tricky magical theory left.

_I have what I need. Wrap it in fabric, put it at the bottom of your trunk and stop thinking about it._

Harry could easily put the book away, but not thinking about it was somewhat more difficult.

"You said..." he hesitated.

_Yes?_

"You said Dark magic wasn't necessarily..." Harry tried to find a word that could explain how he felt about a lot of the magic in that book.

_It isn't._

Harry opened his mouth to comment, but Voldemort heaved a sigh. It was loud in the confines of Harry's skull.

_Yes, the magic in that book is Dark, and yes, it is also moderately unpleasant. The book is called _'Magick Moste Evile'_ - what were you expecting? But not __**all**__, or even most, of the magic we call Dark is unpleasant. And wasn't it you who was just thinking about what might happen if you aimed a Severing Charm at somebody's leg? That's a first year spell, isn't it?_

Harry frowned unhappily. "Then -"

_No_, said Voldemort exasperatedly. _You're trying to simplify this into something easily understood. The urge is natural, but stupid. Magic doesn't get to be categorised or broken down into straightforward designations. It's not good or bad - good and bad are ideas humans made up to explain their world. Magic transcends petty human distinctions._

Harry wasn't sure he understood, but he didn't ask again. He felt it would be pushing his luck against Voldemort's patience. "Did you find what you needed?" he asked instead, burying the book and putting his things back in the trunk.

_Yes. I have to think about it. Don't ask me again._

And that was that.

Harry went to bed.

Voldemort was present but silent on Sunday, which Harry used to get as much of his homework done as possible. He got up with the sun and went down to the empty common room to get started on his homework for Potions class. He doubted that the excitement of the weekend was going to make Snape any more forgiving of tardy work.

The fifth and seventh years had commandeered most of the tables, and since the stress of being confined to their common room was only added to the stress of achieving a satisfactory number of OWLs or NEWTs for these students, the other Slytherins gave in without much of a fight.

Harry had colonised a small corner of precious floor space for his own, and so far he hadn't needed to defend it from anybody. He finished the readings for Potions, powered through a foot and a half of writing on Mending Charms, and then revised his essay on the surprisingly tricky _avifors_ spell for Transfiguration class. McGonagall was a notoriously hard marker, so any work turned in for her class had to be read and read again.

At some point, the timing of which Harry wasn't entirely clear on, lunch was served in their common room.

"Feeling better?" Pansy Parkinson asked, tossing him a bun.

"Yeah, much." He caught it out of the air and looked at it for a moment, and then realised that he was actually pretty hungry. He bit into it, and found that some thoughtful elf had baked chopped vegetables into its hot, soft centre. "This is good," he said, taking another bite.

But she was examining his face. "You don't _look_ very good," she said critically, scrunching her nose.

"Er... thanks?" asked Harry through a mouthful of food.

She shook her head. "I want to look at your Charms assignment," she said bluntly. This, Harry thought, was the nice thing about the other students in Slytherin. You didn't have to worry about whether or not they had ulterior motives; just which ones.

"Do you?" asked Harry, licking crumbs off his fingers.

"Come on, Potter," she said with a flattering smile and a flutter of eyelashes. "Everybody knows you're doing the best in Charms by far."

Harry had actually not been keeping track, far more concerned with the extra-curricular commitments of nicking stuff from the Headmaster's office. But if he thought about it, he had been learning an awful lot for the subject lately, what with studying the Disillusionment Charm so thoroughly.

"You can't have it," he said shortly. "But if you get me another of those buns, I'll read yours over."

Parkinson scowled, which Harry suspected meant she hadn't started. He shrugged. "Or you could ask Zabini. I've heard he's good - heard, mind you, because he's too good to talk to any-"

"All right, all right," she cut him off. "I'll get you a bun, you let me read your introduction," she said, raising one eyebrow.

"Okay," said Harry.

She returned with two of the baked buns, and he ate his and confiscated hers for safekeeping while she checked the introduction - and probably a bit more, he was sure - against The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1.

This exchange must have given the other first years some indication that Harry was feeling sociable, because they were quickly joined by Nott and Crabbe and Goyle.

"Where's Draco?" Harry wondered. It wasn't so rare to see him with only Crabbe or only Goyle, but it was unlike him to ditch both of them.

"Writing a letter in bed," said Crabbe, yawning. "His Dad's on the Board of Governors, so they've heard about the monster. Reckon they might have reacted, er, a bit strongly."

When he'd seen Draco's father at the train station, he'd seemed very cold indeed, but he supposed some people were like that in public. Harry nodded, privately thinking that a parent's worry must be a nice thing.

"So," said Nott after the short, awkward pause that seemed to occur whenever somebody mentioned parents around Harry, as though they were all thinking _oh no he has no parents what do we do_ but didn't know how to address this imagined problem, "you actually do spend all of your time in the library."

Harry glanced over at him and found that the other boy was holding his History of Magic paper, which was a good seven inches longer than it was supposed to be. After Voldemort's little lecture on the importance of Wizarding history, Harry had developed something of an interest in magical history - not, he had to admit, that this helped him stay awake during Binns' class. It was nice to know what he was talking about when he had to write an assignment, though.

"Oh, that," he said. "Yeah, I still have to cut a bit out of it." Or just scrunch his writing up smaller. He might be able to get away with being only a _few_ inches over the limit, if his writing was very small. He shelved the idea.

Nott was looking at him as though there was something growing out of his face. "This isn't due until next week," he said.

"And even if I finish it now, it will still be ready next week." Harry took it off him, feeling self-conscious.

"Don't pick on him," said Parkinson.

"Why?" said Nott drily, "Have you not finished mooching his work yet?"

"Not yet, no," she said absently, from where she was - reading his Transfigurations essay. Of course.

"Of course." Harry sighed.

The weekend passed in this fashion: all of the students living in their housemates' pockets in a tiny space, with intermittent check-ins from the increasingly irate Potions Master - usually accompanied by his increasingly ruffled looking rooster.

Monday was little better. They were woken at seven and herded down to the common room, where the house elves had sent up tea and croissants for breakfast. There was Professor Snape, looking even more pallid than usual, warming his hands before the fire. Next to his foot were seven unhappy roosters, which did not seem to get on very well with one another.

"Sit," he said frostily to the entirety of Slytherin house.

They sat.

"There has been no resolution to the problem," he said. "We have neither caught nor cornered the beast, and there is some doubt as to whether or not we will." The assembled students broke out in a sudden rash of whispers.

Snape let this go on for a few moments.

"Silence," he said, finally.

They were quiet.

"Hogwarts holds more secrets than any one person can reliably know. It is possible that the creature entered the castle by unknown means, and has since left for its home. However," he added, "in the interests of student safety, the Headmaster has decided that you will be escorted to and from each class by one of these."

It was then that Harry realised that each of the scuffling birds had a little badge pinned to a collar. They were numbered one through to seven, and Harry supposed this was in accordance with which class would take which bird.

"A rooster, sir?" asked a third year girl, sounding a bit incredulous.

"Yes, Miss Goshawk, a rooster. Did anybody have any relevant questions? No? Then you're dismissed. Oh, yes," he added, turning from the exit, "the student injured in the initial incident is still petrified, but he is expected to make a full recovery. The Headmaster felt this news might be... _uplifting_," he sneered.

Mutters broke out quickly after he'd left, and Harry heard several unflattering comments about the sanity of the Headmaster. Whether or not the other students were _uplifted_, Harry was certainly relieved.

Classes commenced as expected, with the notable addition of a few scratches and feathers to some students, and the occasional commotion of a loudly crowing rooster waiting outside the classroom door.

It was another few days before Voldemort said anything about the content of the book they'd taken from the Headmaster's office. Finally, after the information had been marinating in Voldemort's mind for almost a week, Harry asked him if it had been helpful.

Having dedicated so much time and danger to the effort of getting it, he hoped it had been.

_Yes_, Voldemort agreed, finally deigning to speak to Harry about it during a Herbology class,_ I understand the problem now. I just need to think of what might be done about it._

Harry nodded, rather sloppily repotting a milkweed rose.

Voldemort must have been ready to talk about it anyway, and for want of another audience he had to speak to Harry.

_I performed the charm that splits the soul when I was sixteen, and it appears that my interpretation of the text was... imperfect._

Remembering that whole sections of the book had been indecipherable to him because of the archaic language and writing, Harry nodded.

_The reason nobody does it more than once is because it tears a soul more or less in half, within a margin of error. You seal one part away and then if something happens that would otherwise mean your death, you have that piece of yourself in reserve so you avoid being harmed._

Harry nodded again. That sounded, if not straightforward, at least reasonable.

_If you do it again, you're working with half of your soul, so you end up sealing a quarter away. Then an eighth, then a sixteenth, and so forth - although this is more of a metaphor. Souls are... difficult to quantify,_ he added, as though this was very annoying. _Do you understand?_

Harry grunted into his milkweed rose. It made an odd, cooing noise back at him and rubbed itself against his fingers.

_I have,_ Voldemort said, sounding weary,_ shredded my soul into exponentially smaller pieces. I thought it would be a... shaving, a sliver of soul, each time. It wasn't. I whittled myself down to - to less than a twentieth, I expect - of a soul._

_I don't really know what a soul does_, Harry admitted, frowning at his plant.

_Your soul is the vital source. Your brain remembers with or without your soul, but without a soul your memories have no meaning. It fills you up: it is your sentience, your passions, your motivation, your personality._

"And you_** cut it up**_?" Harry blurted.

"You wouldn't be able to make potions out of it if you didn't," said Blaise scathingly, and Harry abruptly remembered he was in greenhouse number one with the rest of his herbology class. "If it bothers you so much don't _pet_ it, Potter."

Harry looked down at the milkweed rose. It was still rubbing itself sweetly on his hand. "It's just, er - it's very cute," he stuttered when Professor Sprout glanced over to him.

She gave him a warm smile. "Mr Zabini's correct, Mr Potter. Sometimes it's best not to get too attached." She squeezed his shoulder gently and continued walking around the greenhouse, helping the other students.

Harry heaved a sigh.

_So you ended up ...hurting yourself?_ he asked, silently this time. He would get the hang of this silent communication one day.

_Like an injury to the body,_ said Voldemort, sounding sort of surprised about it._ But... not._

Well, thought Harry idly, it was little wonder then that the great and terrible Dark Lord had been such a nutjob.

_You don't seem that, er, hurt, now?_

_I theorise that it's because your soul has grown to support me over the past decade._

_Oh_, said Harry.

_Watch your fingers_, said Voldemort, and Harry yanked his hand back just in time to avoid slicing himself on a thorn. His milkweed rose made a disappointed sound.

Harry put some of the nutrient-rich dirt provided for them into a new pot before settling the next plant inside.

_I think_, said Voldemort, in what seemed to Harry like an enormous change of subject, _you should invite Draco Malfoy to undertake the Samhain ritual with you in a few weeks._

_I should?_ Harry wondered. _Didn't you say it's easier to keep a secret nobody else knows about?_

_Oh, he won't turn you in_, Voldemort said confidently. _He'll be thrilled. And while you're sharing these little secrets, you may as well see if you can't get an invitation to spend Christmas with his family._

Then Voldemort fell silent, and Harry was left peering down at his dirty fingernails, trying to figure out if all of these things were connected, and if so, _how.  
_

* * *

**A couple of notes**: Firstly, I should give credit where credit is due. The recipe I've attributed to Godelot in _Magick Moste Evile _is actually referenced in the completely awesome book "Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians" by Richard Sugg.

The original recipe is credited to the German physician Oswald Croll, in _Bazilica Chymica_, trans. 'a lover of chemistry' in 1670.

Aaaand to those of you who could have lived long and prosperous lives without ever reading the phrase _corpse medicine_: I'm not sorry. It's character building. :P

**Also, seriously, witches and wizards and magical persons who identify otherwise, thank you for your reviews**, there's lots of them, I read them all and I feel terribly awkward about whether or not I should respond to them; mostly I respond if people ask questions, ones that aren't like 'IS X PLOT EVENT GOING TO HAPPEN?' because that seems like giving away kind of a lot, but, you know, you're welcome to ask, Christ, you know, don't let me discourage you. But I do read them and I appreciate receiving them. So to conclude this slightly flustered note: you people make me feel like I have an audience, and I'm not just spewing pathetic fantasies into the ether. So thanks.


	9. Chapter 9

It was still weeks before Hallowe'en, so Harry had plenty of time to work himself up to inviting Draco to a clandestine ritual that might well land them both in a lot of trouble. Meanwhile, however, there were other problems. It was as they were following a feathery expedition of clucking roosters up to the Great Hall for breakfast that Tracey Davis spotted the notice.

"Flying lessons!" She crowed, waving the rest over.

As soon as they entered the Great Hall, the roosters that had accompanied them went to join their brethren, who were dust bathing in a corner. In a great show of inter-house unity, the Slytherin birds immediately picked a fight with the Gryffindor ones. There were no clear winners, but a lot of dust and feathers and chickeny squawking.

Initially, these scuffles had been a source of great amusement to the students, but by the time a week had passed, not even the most enthusiastic punter wanted to know about skirmishing chickens before breakfast.

Harry drifted along behind the excited crowd of Slytherin first years, but then when they arrived at the notice board he was the shortest of the boys - and actually shorter than most of the girls - so he couldn't read the notice anyway. He didn't really need to, however, as it happened.

"We've got flying with the _Gryffindors_!" growled Nott.

This announcement was met with universal disapproval, noises of disgust and one throaty "Booo!" from Davis.

But not even the looming Gryffindors were a deterrent to the excitement of flying lessons themselves. It was the talk of their end of the Slytherin table that morning.

"Flying lessons?" Harry said to Draco, nibbling a piece of toast. There was bacon and eggs, but Harry struggled to eat the large portions of food at Hogwarts, and it seemed best to just get at least a whole piece of toast down when he could. "On a broomstick, right?" he knew that much, at least, from listening to the rambling discussions of Quidditch teams that went on in the common room.

Draco eyed him. "Yes, on a broomstick," he said, rather tartly, and then paused. "Haven't you -" he caught Harry's unhappy look. "Merlin, I suppose you haven't."

They looked at each other in silence.

"Well," Draco rallied, "I'm a good flier. I've got my own broom - at home, obviously, first years aren't meant to bring them. I've flown loads of times. You can just copy me and you'll do fine."

"I suppose," said Harry uncertainly. He prodded Voldemort gently, wondering if the voice knew something about flying that might help.

_Hold on,_ said Voldemort drily. Oddly, Harry got the feeling that he didn't much like flying. Maybe he didn't like heights._ There's nothing wrong with heights_, he said, yawning. _Heights are fine. But I wouldn't recommend falling off._

"Look," said Draco, and Harry looked back at him in the hope that he'd provide more some more useful information, "As long as you don't pick the broom up and try to do housework with it, you'll already be miles ahead of half of the Gryffindors."

As scathing as that was, it was a bit comforting to remember that other houses had muggle-born students who didn't have a clue either. Harry decided not to point out that only a few months ago he wouldn't have known there was an alternative use for a broom, either. Sometimes it was best not to draw attention to these things.

Harry's doubts about flying lessons were interrupted by the arrival of the post, which fluttered down to breakfast on soft wings. Draco's beautiful eagle owl looked with the greatest scorn upon the dust bathing chooks, and held himself very upright. While Draco took the letters and parcels to sort through, Harry fed the handsome owl all his bacon, which the bird accepted regally as his due.

"You'll spoil him," said Draco, but absently and not as though he minded much. "You watch, he'll go home and expect the same treatment from mother, and she'll stuff him."

Harry thought that Draco was the last person on earth qualified to comment on spoiling anybody, but it was his owl, after all. Harry stopped feeding him.

"You should probably eat some of your own bacon, anyway," said Draco, glancing at Harry's plate. "Or at least some food, of some description."

"I'm done," said Harry, pushing his plate away. "I'm going to follow those fifth years to the library," he added, spotting a group of Ravenclaws taking their rooster in that direction.

"Don't let anything big and hairy eat you," murmured Draco, face buried in his correspondence.

"Thanks," Harry muttered, hurrying to catch up.

Despite the possibility of a murderous monster haunting the school, and the sudden inclusion of the roosters in their daily life, the students' schedule was maintained with a staggering sense of normalcy. The vast majority of the professors took it in stride, as though this panic was a small speed bump on the road to exams.

_Well,_ said Voldemort, _It's Hogwarts, isn't it? You'd almost have to be used to constant mayhem to teach here._

There was constant mayhem, Harry thought, and then there was a student-hungry basilisk living in the plumbing.

The teachers had nerves of steel.

Except one of them.

_I don't think Quirrell is going to last very long, then,_ Harry said back.

_Oh, I shouldn't think so_, said Voldemort. _I've heard the Defence job's cursed._ He laughed softly.

It was true that of all the teachers, only Professor Quirrell seemed to remain bothered about the attack. It was no secret that he spent the week following the event pacing outside the girls' loo in what looked to Harry like some kind of twitching neurotic haze.

Twitching neuroses evidently seemed very professional to some of the other students, though, because even the naturally suspicious Slytherins disregarded this odd behaviour.

"Well," said Draco indifferently, flipping to the back of the _Prophet_ for the Quidditch scores over breakfast, "He is the Defence teacher, isn't he? It would be poor form if he let some dirty great monster attack the students without at least looking like he was trying to do something about it. He's weird, though, I'll give you that," he added, running a finger along a tiny inked column, brow furrowing as he looked for something. "Parkinson says she heard him trying to talk to the plumbing, or something, 'til that batty ghost chased him off. More relevantly, Harry, do you see this, right here, Merlin, the Falcons got trounced by the _Harpies_?"

"_What_?" Nott bellowed, leaning over to paw at the paper - whereupon Draco gave him a sharp look, and he hesitated. "Er."

There was a bit of a pause. Several other Slytherins glanced toward them restlessly.

"I'm done with it," said Draco levelly, and magnanimously released his copy of the _Prophet_ into Theo's hands.

"Thanks," he muttered, burying his nose in the pages.

"What _is_ that?" Draco said, distracted by something going on at the Gryffindor table. "Huh. A Remembrall," he said, frowning.

"A what?" Harry asked, momentarily distracted. He glanced over to see a glass ball clutched in the hands of Neville Longbottom.

"Remembrall, for 'Remember All'," said Crabbe from across the table. "The smoke goes red if you've forgotten something - well, something important, anyway. I had one when I was little," he added at Harry's questioning glance. "Not very useful, really. Won't tell you what the thing you've forgotten is."

"Longbottom needs all the help he can get," said Draco, rolling his eyes and turning back to their own table.

It was exactly what Harry had been thinking, but he wasn't willing to say it as baldly as Draco.

Nott suddenly burst out with: "Not even just beaten, Merlin, beaten into _paste_. That's embarrassing, that is."

"Aren't the Falcons your team, Malfoy?" Blaise drawled from where he was revising his Astronomy homework over a cup of tea.

Harry tuned out the rest of this commentary - which quickly dissolved into Quidditch bickering anyway - in favour of attending to the more worrying piece of information he'd gleaned that morning.

"So, what's this about Quirrell talking to the plumbing?" he said to Pansy, turning to her across the empty spot on his left. She was closely inspecting her pot of blackberry conserve, and did not seem altogether pleased with it.

"Ugh," she said, and for a second he didn't know if she was addressing him or the jam, "as if Moaning Myrtle wasn't bad enough - now you have to listen to that nutter talking to himself, too, while you're trying to use the loo." She sounded absolutely disgusted.

Harry wrinkled his nose.

"Exactly," she said, even though she hadn't looked at him, "By Hallowe'en, nobody is going to use that toilet, I tell you."

"That sounds, er," said Harry, "awfully inconvenient." His mind was quickly occupied with other thoughts, however.

_Is he muttering to himself because he's a nutter,_ he wondered quietly to Voldemort, _or does he know something about the entrance?_

_Probably he's a nutter_, said Voldemort slowly,_ but keep an eye out. Being nuts doesn't preclude him from causing problems._

"Do you know, I think this has possibilities," said Pansy, who was now holding her pot of blackberry conserve up to the light. Where the sunlight shone through the glass, it was a dark,rich colour.

"You've been looking at it for ten minutes," said the girl on her other side, a girl named Millicent Bullstrode, who was quiet enough that Harry didn't know her well. "You're not going to eat it."

"No," said Pansy breezily, "but I think it would look brilliant on my nails. It's got a nice kind of textured, plumy colour."

"It's _jam_," said Harry.

"It's jam _now_," corrected Pansy. "A few charms, a little transfigurations work -"

"If you paid that much attention to your homework -" said Millicent, a bit drily.

Pansy turned away with a sniff and began rapidly packing up her things. A glance at the clock told Harry that classes would be beginning soon. "Anyway," Pansy said to Harry finally, tossing her bag over her shoulder, "it's a good thing he's the Defence teacher, after all. He'll be gone by the end of the year."

"He will?"

"Of course," said Pansy carelessly. "Defence job's cursed, everybody knows that," she said, and Voldemort's amusement swelled inside Harry's head.

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but he was startled by a sudden interruption from across the table. "D'you ever finish your food?" Gregory Goyle asked, eyeing Harry's plate.

"Sometimes," said Harry evasively. He was never very hungry, and he felt very full and sick when he ate what his classmates considered a normal amount of food. "Come on, we've got History of Magic," he said, turning to Draco.

"He won't notice if we're late," said Draco without much commitment.

"Pansy will tell him out of spite," said Harry, poking him in the shoulder. "Come on."

Draco thought about this. "Probably," he agreed after a second. "Though I don't see what use it is for me to know any more about Urg the Unclean. Who cares if some goblin got pushed into a pond?"

"Well," said Harry, waiting patiently while Draco checked his books, "It does sort of seem like the goblins were a bit miffed. What with the rebellion and all."

"And the only people who still care are you and Binns." Draco shouldered his bag, and on cue so did Crabbe and Goyle, rising from the breakfast table like small mountains. He eyed Harry. "How much do I have to pay you to get you to write my history paper?"

"Well now." Harry gave Draco an arch look and tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Let me check my vault statement, and I'll get back to you," he smirked - but all this really served to do was to remind him that he still needed to find out who had the key to his parents' vault. He should have asked when he'd been at the bank.

They were just on time for History of Magic, setting their books down just as Professor Binns made his entrance through the blackboard at the front of his classroom and, without checking to see if his students were even present, began another dreary lecture about the Goblin Rebellions.

Having been reminded once already, Harry took advantage of the terribly boring class to ink a letter to the Gringotts goblins requesting the information about who had the key to his vault. He wasn't sure what he could do to assure them of his identity, and said as much to Voldemort.

_See what they say,_ he said, giving the mental equivalent of a shrug. _My vaults have always required blood to open them - most of the older ones do, within a certain number of degrees of consanguinity. I don't know what other identification the goblins are likely to accept._

Harry let the ink dry, then folded his letter up and addressed it, ready to be sent to the bank that evening.

Classes passed, until it was at last Thursday afternoon and the time appointed for flying lessons was fast approaching. Draco was driving everybody mad with repetitious tales of his flying exploits - although 'shenanigans' might have been a better word. He made it sound as though he'd spent half his life on a broom.

Harry, who was still nervously awaiting the moment when he embarrassed himself terribly, nodded along with Draco's story and left it up to the others to appear impressed. He was sure these stories were all artfully embellished, but they didn't do much for his own confidence - and everyone seemed to have at least one story to tell. Even Ron Weasley could be heard loudly telling the Gryffindor table about the one time he nearly hit a hang glider.

"Buck up," said Theodore, snagging an apple out of the bowl on the table as the first years all gathered their things and set off to their flying lesson, "Even if it's really bad, it'll be over by sunset."

He clapped Harry on the shoulder and quickened his step to catch up with Zabini, who took the opportunity to ignore him.

This was actually a bit comforting to Harry - more comforting certainly than breezy assurances that he'd be fine.

_It has the advantage of being true_, said the voice of Voldemort in Harry's head.

Flying lessons were held out on the grounds, where the air was cold, the grass was determined to remain green well until autumn's end, and the sky was very blue. The roosters, who were their constant companions, amused themselves by scratching in the dirt by the castle wall.

There were two lines of broomsticks on the grass, some of which seemed to be in much better repair than others. There was a brief scuffle to get a broom that wasn't twisted and loose in the twigs.

Harry found himself between Goyle and Millicent Bullstrode, looking at a broom that was only a little worse for wear - and then he realised that the line of Slytherins was matched with a line of Gryffindor first years, separated by a stretch of green grass.

He was directly opposite Ron Weasley, who was looking at him very intently.

Harry had seen him terribly subdued in the days following his brothers' run in with the basilisk, but now that it had been declared that the petrification was quite reversible with time, the only person who still seemed unhappy was the remaining twin.

It was probably an unworthy thought, but Harry really thought he preferred their shared classes when Ron was subdued.

He looked around to see if anybody else was garnering such intense attention. They weren't.

He was definitely staring at Harry.

Harry wasn't sure why. Surely it was Draco who was meanest to him - or Pansy, perhaps, because she was absolutely merciless when riled. Harry, surely, was not really that mean to anybody.

Harry wondered, vaguely, if he was supposed to feel intimidated by the caged, furious look on his face or the pugnacious set of the other boy's jaw. In a world where he didn't wake up and fall asleep, daily, to Voldemort's cranky mental presence, it might have felt more threatening.

_I could teach you to hex him, if you like_, said Voldemort in the back of Harry's head.

Harry liked that idea more than he should. He thought about it. He knew a couple of curses, mostly from Voldemort's over-sharing and the random absorption of knowledge across their conversations, but they were lethal and painful and not the sort of thing you used on your school mates. The least awful one he could think of, off the top of his head, was that claudus curse, which would induce permanent, painful lameness.

_A hex, not a curse_, said the voice, _although if you do want to permanently maim him I know a very good one._

_More than one_, said Harry, amused despite himself, but he shelved the idea. He didn't need to curse - or hex - Weasley in the middle of their flying lesson. He just needed to learn to fly without falling on his face.

"I do think he'd be better off if he was looking at his own broom," Harry said aloud, when he discovered that Weasley was still looking at him so balefully.

"Weasley's not looking at your broom, Potter," drawled Draco loudly, "he's looking at your shoes." He leaned past Goyle, like he was telling Harry some kind of secret, but his voice still carried across the grounds. "He's wondering if you'll give him a coin to shine them."

"Shut up, Malfoy!" snapped Weasley, shifting his attention, which was something of a relief to Harry.

"Oooh," said Pansy, laughing through her scorn. "What a comeback!"

"Well, I suppose it's what passes for wit among Gryffindors," said Draco, settling back on his heels and banishing an errant speck of dust from the shoulder of his cloak.

They were - rather luckily, Harry thought - interrupted by the arrival of their teacher, Madam Hooch. This fierce-looking witch had golden eyes and frosty hair, and she began the lesson with a sharp reminder about broom safety.

"The best way to learn is by doing," she told them, and then with no further preamble: "Hold your hands out above your brooms and say _up_!"

"Up!" echoed the first years, firmly and decisively.

Harry's broom leapt off the ground and into his hand. Farther down the line, so did the brooms of Zabini, Bullstrode and Draco, but not everybody was having such an easy time. Pansy's was disobediently flopping over in the grass, but at least it was moving - he could see that in the Gryffindor lineup, neither Hermione Granger nor Neville Longbottom was having any luck at all with the exercise.

Slowly, the brooms responded to the students, with the help of some rough encouragement from Madam Hooch. "You are a witch, Miss Granger," he heard her saying, firmly but patiently, "and it is only a broom. Try again."

Under her hawklike gaze, Granger _did_ get the broom to rise into her hand on its own, but Longbottom appeared to be a lost cause. Harry felt a little bit bad for him, really - he had appalling luck, a poor memory, and he seemed to struggle to get all of his limbs under control at the same time. It almost seemed dangerous to allow him to get out of bed on his own.

_It's amazing he manages to eat breakfast every morning without losing an eye,_ Voldemort agreed drily.

Harry didn't really want to think of burst eyeballs. He made a face.

Their next task was to mount the broom, and they practised tight grips so they didn't slide off the ends of their brooms. Madam Hooch came by and smartly corrected any grips she didn't like - including Draco's, which seemed to offend him greatly.

"I've been doing it that way for years," he said.

"Then you've been doing it wrong for years," she responded, changing the position of his fingers.

Across the grass, Weasley looked much too pleased with himself. It annoyed Harry, but it wasn't any more offensive than Draco's smug glances during Potions. He kept his eyes on his own fingers.

Finally, they were sorted out: standing astride mostly-obedient brooms, gripping correctly, and nobody in danger of being smacked in the face by their broom handle and falling to their death.

"Very good," said Madam Hooch. "When I blow my whistle, I want each of you to kick off from the ground, hard. You will need to keep your brooms steady, hover for a moment, and - Longbottom!" her voice cracked like a whip.

Considering how pale he had been, Harry thought he must have been very eager to be up in the air to kick off before Madam Hooch's say-so, for he had kicked off and was rising rapidly.

"Mr Longbottom, come back down this instant," said Madam Hooch.

A second later, Harry realised what had happened: the nervous boy had kicked off too early, and now he was drifting up in the air, out of control.

He must have been shaking terribly, because his broom was trembling wildly - up - _up_ -

- and then, of course, he fell. Harry scrunched his eyes closed against the unpleasant crunch of the Gryffindor boy hitting the dirt.

Hooch dashed over to Longbottom, examining his arm and finding it broken at the wrist, and then finally she stood up to escort him to the hospital wing. "None of you is to move while I take him to the hospital wing," she cautioned them. "You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch'," she said, giving them all a very hard look.

There was a second of silence after Hooch left.

Draco started to laugh. Harry bit his lip and tried not to join in, because it really wasn't that funny, it was just -

"Did you see his face, the great lump?" Draco asked, amidst unrestrained laughter from the other Slytherins.

"Shut up, Malfoy," snapped a Gryffindor girl.

Harry didn't know her, but Pansy evidently did, for she said, "Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom? Never thought _you'd_ like fat little crybabies, Parvati."

The other girl's face flushed, and Harry could see her jaw clench.

"Look, it's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him," Draco said suddenly, darting forward to grab something from the grass.

It was the Remembrall.

"Give it here, Malfoy!" Bellowed Weasley.

The Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up. It might have defused the tension if all that wispy smoke had turned crimson in Draco's hand, but the ball remained clear and peaceful, heedless to the hostilities around it.

Draco smiled. Usually smiles suited Draco's face, but this one was particularly unpleasant. Harry shifted nervously on his feet.

He didn't know that he felt very good about whatever was about to happen.

"I think I'll leave it for Longbottom to find," said Draco sweetly. "How about - up a tree?"

No, that was just mean. Harry opened his mouth to tell him to drop it, but Voldemort interrupted.

_You can't just tell him to drop it,_ he sighed.

_Why not?_ Harry thought back, staring at the glitter in Draco's hand.

_You're in public. If you undermine him - and side with the Gryffindors, I might add - you'll have to fight about it._

In a rush, Harry understood: it was public, with all of the other Slytherins watching. Draco was, largely due to his family, very much at the top of the hierarchy amongst the first years. If Harry were to tell him to do something, in front of all of them, and then somehow force him to do it, it would be a serious challenge to Draco's influence over the others, and they wouldn't be friends again until it was resolved.

_Yes,_ said Voldemort. _It's a power play. You'd probably get away with it in private - maybe, anyway, Malfoy's a conceited little brat - without upsetting him too much, but if you embarrass him in public you'll seriously damage our chances of getting to Malfoy Manor this Christmas._

Harry still didn't know why they had to get to the Manor, but this business of power was an idea that made this a lot more complicated than simply preventing Longbottom's stupid gift from being broken. He wasn't sure what to do, but they were still arguing, Draco was still grinning, and Harry could feel it escalating.

_I don't want to fight about it, I just want him to give the ball back_, said Harry fiercely.

_If it really bothers you that much_, said Voldemort, sounding surprised that it would, _I suppose you could ask him. Although asking always puts you in the weaker position. He'll want something for it._

But he was supposed to be keeping Draco on-side, wasn't he? Being friends with him. And, honestly, he liked him - more than he liked Longbottom, anyway.

And now Draco was reaching for his broom, and Weasley was spitting mad - and Hermione Granger was loudly reminding them all that Madam Hooch had said not to fly.

Merlin, what a wretched little thing she was.

"Draco," he said, raising his voice to be heard. Weasley scowled ferociously at Harry, who had drawn the attention back to himself.

Draco's pale face turned in his direction, Remembrall held negligently in the other hand.

"Would it, er, would it really hurt to give it back?"

Draco frowned at him. "Why should I?"

Everybody was watching them now.

Harry shrugged. He had the impression that _it's mean_ wasn't a good enough reason. Occasional acts of pure spite were just part of Draco's character. "Didn't you say he needs all the help he can get? Come on," he said, rolling his eyes dramatically, "he's such a sad, pathetic thing."

Draco sniffed. "I did say that," he agreed. "And he _is_ pathetic, quite right." He tossed the glass ball into the air and caught it again. "Do you feel sorry for him, Potter? Is that it?" His mouth curved.

"Well," Harry temporised. He was getting so used to lying that he didn't feel quite right telling the truth when he was questioned. "A little?"

"Fine," said Draco carelessly, and tossed the ball in Weasley's general direction without looking at him.

Weasley snatched it out of the air, quick as a snake, with a deftness that surprised Harry. He didn't look very happy. Granger looked relieved.

"So you take orders from Potter now, do you, Malfoy?" Blaise Zabini asked loudly.

Harry could almost see every vertebra of Draco's spine stiffen into a straight line. The blond turned a very nasty look on Zabini, but it was too late: all the other Slytherins were listening now.

"I was asking," Harry snapped, because this was exactly the stupidity he'd been trying to avoid. In no way did he want to start an argument with Draco. Suddenly he was _furious_ with Blaise, who was critical and always acted as though he was better than everybody, and then words were pouring out, fast and mean and poisonous: "Because Draco's my friend," he spat, sounding more certain than he was, "and you can ask things of your friends. Let me know if I'm going too fast for you, Zabini - I realise you don't have any because you're such an unbearable snob."

Somewhere down the line of Slytherins, a girl started laughing. It was probably Pansy, but it was hard to tell because a second later more voices had joined in. Zabini's face darkened.

Harry swallowed. He didn't know where that had come from. Voldemort was silent, which he would not have been if he'd somehow taken over Harry's mouth.

_Oh no_, said the voice, _that was all you._

"Potter's right," said Draco, shrugging one shoulder. "Longbottom's not worth all this trouble - and also you _do_ have no friends," he added, as though it was some kind of afterthought.

And that seemed to be the end of that, with each house returning to their established groups and pretending the other one didn't exist, but Harry didn't miss the look Draco gave him when Hooch finally returned to dismiss the class. He looked at Harry in a way that was shrewd and assessing, like he'd just done something brand new and a little bit unsettling.

But then he just bumped shoulders with Harry on the way back to the castle, and said, "Potter, that was downright mean, with Zabini back there."

By that stage Harry's anger had given away to an uncertain mix of guilt, and resentment toward Blaise for making him feel guilty about it at all. "So?" he asked defensively. "You're mean all the time."

"But you're not," Draco pointed out. "Anyway, I didn't say it was bad. So how about that history homework?"

Harry frowned at him for a second. Mean but not bad. He decided to let it go, and smiled. "If you're kind to all of the truly pathetic people that cross your path for the next twelve hours, I'll let you read mine."

"So that's dinner and sleeping," said Draco contemplatively. "Are you counting Mrs Norris?"

"Never," Harry vowed. "She is the spawn of the devil. Actually," said Harry, slowing his pace to drop back from the group a little. It was good to talk outside because there were no ghosts or portraits and they couldn't be easily overheard, "I was going to invite you..."

He knew he had him when Draco leaned in closer. Curiosity: that one truly reliable Slytherin trait. Of course sometimes they were curious about the contents of other people's vaults and houses, too.

He sighed. It would be easier if he just spat it out. "I'm going to do a Samhain ritual this year. A sacrifice. For my ancestors," he said.

Draco's eyebrows shot up. "At Hogwarts?"

"Well... yeah. So it's kind of a secret, obviously -"

"_Obviously_," Draco interjected.

"It's my first Samhain after I learned about magic," said Harry reasonably. "I can hardly miss it. And they haven't had anybody doing the ritual for them for eleven years at least," he added. Although from what he'd heard, he very much doubted that either of his parents would have approved of it.

"True," said Draco reflectively.

"I wouldn't mind you coming along. I mean, if you wanted to? It would mean missing the Hallowe'en feast, of course, but -"

"Don't be daft," said Draco, "of course I'm coming."

Harry smiled.

_Good_, hissed Voldemort softly.

* * *

A late update, for which I apologise. Sorry readers (is that the accepted term? Readers? Correspondents? Sisters? _Comrades_? I like comrades, I think I will use comrades), I moved house and it's the middle of winter so then of course I got sick and didn't want to do anything but lay on my face and make noises like a really sad beached whale for a few days.

**To** (Comrade)** Lord Toewart**: You wanted a response, but do not seem to have an FFnet account. That's a sad state, my condolences. I hope the rooster escort business was more or less appropriately explained in this chapter. If not, allow me to say only that it is a partnership, shrouded in mystery, forged between student and avian into perfect balance which none may break. As for corpse medicine: I am majoring in literature (slowly, very slowly), and I found a reference I didn't understand, and then suddenly I'd read a whole book on how people used to use and/or eat human corpses for medicine and it was so cool, _so cool and gross and amazing,_ and I giggled like a twelve year old boy poking a bug with a stick, so I had to include it.

I hope I've responded to the rest of the reviews which asked for a response, or asked a specific question. Annnd lastly I promise I will finally get to the Samhain ritual next chapter. Goodness me it's taken a lot longer than I thought it would. D:


	10. Chapter 10

In the end, Harry spent Samhain alone in the girls' loo with Draco Malfoy.

But other things happened first, of course. Flying lessons continued, and Harry discovered that flying was _brilliant_.

On their second lesson they hovered and floated obediently around a few feet off the ground under Madam Hooch's razor eyes, and he had the itchy feeling of frustration that this was easy, so easy, and he didn't understand why other students - Thomas and Goyle and, colossally, terribly, _Longbottom_ - were so bad at it.

On their third lesson he got to launch himself into the air, leaning low against the shaft of the broom, and feel the swooping sensation in his stomach as the ground dropped out from under him.

He was surprised - and a tiny bit delighted - to feel Voldemort's queasiness as they soared.

"You're afraid of heights!" he exclaimed, and nobody could hear him because he was much too high up, far away from where the rest of the class were impatiently waiting their turn.

_I am not afraid of heights,_ said Voldemort peevishly. _I am thinking about how many cushioning charms you don't know - for when you inevitably pull some stupid stunt and send us hurtling hundreds of feet to your death._

"You weren't nearly this worried when you set a basilisk on us," Harry pointed out, whizzing past a gargoyle mounted on the castle's battlements before soaring another ten feet into the air. Below, he could distantly hear Madam Hooch loudly pointing out his form to the rest of the students.

_That was different_, Voldemort said loftily. _A calculated risk used to achieve a specific end, not blind stupid_ - his voice cut off into dead silence when Harry twisted and performed a shallow dive. Below them, somebody cheered.

This was brilliant. Voldemort was _never_ scared of anything. Even his instincts for self-preservation were calm and calculated. Harry laughed aloud.

_Well calculated_, he thought back cheerfully.

Voldemort hissed at him like an angry cat. His scar stung painfully for hours, but it was a little bit worth it.

"'Flying lessons'," mocked Draco when he landed again. "'On a broomstick, right?'" he said this in a horribly high pitched voice that sounded nothing at all like Harry.

Harry was pink-cheeked and his heart was racing and he was grinning very hard, despite the throb of Voldemort's sulking in his skull. "I may have had slightly less to worry about than I thought," he admitted. "Flying is _brilliant_."

"'S pretty good," Draco agreed, ignoring the sick-sounding groan Goyle made beside him. The boy was legitimately afraid of heights, and he responded to being level with the highest trees by losing his lunch all over the grass - to the laughter and jeers of the Gryffindors and the - equally unpleasant - cool disdain of the Slytherins.

"All right there, Greg?" Harry asked cheerfully. He was so happy he didn't even notice how extremely sour some of the Gryffindors were looking after watching him fly.

"Ungh," said Goyle, who had subsequently been given a pass on the class and was now allowed to spend the rest of their flying lessons in the library. What he would be doing there was anyone's guess; Harry was not entirely certain he could read.

Most of the Slytherins, being raised by witches and wizards, were at least proficient in the basics of flying, even if they weren't thrilled by it. The Gryffindors were the expected mix of blind daring hooliganism - Weasley and Finnegan both didn't seem to realise that they had bones, which could break, if they kept hurtling around like lunatics - and expected incompetence.

"She's actually not that bad," Harry said at one point, eyeing Hermione Granger on her broomstick high above them. She didn't look precisely thrilled to be up there, but she was a fast learner and she had a competent, if stiff, handle on her broom.

"She's better than Longbottom, if that's what you mean," sniffed Draco.

"Go on then," said Harry, shoving him gently, as Granger touched back down with a very relieved expression on her face. "See how good you are."

Draco raised an eyebrow at him, but he mounted his broom at Hooch's nod and launched himself into the air. He hadn't been lying, he was a good flier, probably one of the best ones across the class.

He couldn't resist showing off, either, executing sharp turns and sudden stops and dips and swerves - but he also looked like he was having fun. When he landed again he gave Harry a very superior look, to which Harry only rolled his eyes.

Classes continued. Transfigurations and Charms were Harry's best classes. During the middle of October they moved on to larger and more complicated inanimate-to-inanimate transformations in Transfigurations, where several different components had to be affected at once to create a complete transformation.

In Charms they had recently begun learning the Severing Charm, which Harry found extremely difficult because he couldn't think about it without feeling a little bit queasy. During their first attempt - which was the very simple act of cutting a piece of fabric roughly in half - he found it a serious struggle to cast.

_You're being ridiculous_, Voldemort said, heaving a sigh. The voice had felt slightly bewildered, until it became slowly resigned. Evidently Voldemort had long since accustomed himself to Harry's inexplicable squeamishness on certain matters.

Harry swallowed. He knew this was absolutely true, but in his mind's eye, all he could think was of Godelot's grisly discussion of the merits of the charm for cutting human bodies into tiny pieces to be used as potions ingredients.

_It's a piece of fabric,_ said Voldemort flatly.

_I know_, said Harry.

_It can't feel anything. It's not even alive. _He sounded terribly frustrated.

**_I know_**, said Harry.

"Mr Potter, is something the matter?" Professor Flitwick was only just tall enough to see over Harry's desk, and he looked concerned. "I had thought that this charm would be quite easy for you," he said cautiously.

Harry frowned. "I..." he stumbled.

Next to him, Draco looked over. The cuts on his fabric were a little frayed, but he definitely had the charm working properly.

"No, Professor," he said. "There's no problem." He swallowed and aimed his wand. "_Diffindo_."

A slow and rather half-hearted tear dragged its way slowly through his fabric. It wasn't very neat.

Flitwick eyed it. "Well, er," he said, "that's quite all right for a first try, Mr Potter. I'm sure you'll improve with practice."

_That's pathetic_, hissed Voldemort waspishly. _Do it properly._

Harry sighed, and applied himself to practice.

That Charms class was not one of his finest moments, but he was otherwise a good student. He was probably one of the best students in History of Magic, too, but that was more likely because nobody else - except Hermione Granger - was even trying. Even Draco, whose allowance was heavily dependent upon his grades through some convoluted system of negotiations with his parents, hated the class and usually viewed any passing grade as more than good enough to be going on with.

His grades in Herbology were only average, because it was by and large a practical class and Voldemort could hardly impart much muscle memory to him, even if he did know a lot of useful theory, and Potions...

Potions was sort of its own problem.

Professor Snape seemed to work very hard to avoid openly acknowledging that Harry was even in his class for some reason, but he combined this with the tremendously unhelpful tactic of staring straight at him.

Harry was absolutely certain the man hated him.

Potions represented the same muscle memory problem as Herbology, and had the added problem that Harry spent most of these classes in a twitching, anxious state trying to figure out if Professor Snape was just messing with him, or if he was actually about to leap up at him and go for the throat.

He'd seen those long, strong white fingers wield the short silver potions knives with an unnerving familiarity and grace. He knew that the man had been a Death Eater. He had absolutely no doubt that if he wanted to, Snape could do it.

_He isn't going to murder you,_ said Voldemort, sounding exasperated. Unhelpfully, he finished with, _Not right under Dumbledore's nose._

But Harry wasn't always right under Dumbledore's nose. And he was in Snape's house. _Didn't you say he was a Death Eater? Doesn't that mean he probably hates me?_

_Dumbledore vouched for him in the end, so he's also a traitor, probably_, said Voldemort, sounding extremely detached about the idea. Harry decided not to ask. Sometimes it was much better not to know what Voldemort was thinking, and Harry suspected that this was especially true when concerning betrayal. He didn't want to know.

_I don't think he's looking at you like that for political reasons,_ continued Voldemort thoughtfully. _People usually reserve that degree of feeling for personal things._

Harry was at a loss to explain what 'personal things' Severus Snape could possibly detest him for, since he'd never met the man before the start of term, and had actually not exchanged any words with him since.

Defence was another problem. Following the Incident With The Basilisk, a thing that would forever be in capitals in Harry's mind, Harry's headaches in this class became even more pronounced - to the extent that he sat in class and barely understood what was being said.

The problem was this: Voldemort hated the pain, and in turn Voldemort's jagged emotions hurt Harry's head. By the end of an hour he felt like his skull was going to overflow and his brains would be dribbling out his ears.

"Are you all right?" Crabbe finally asked, a little under a week before Hallowe'en. "You look kind of..." he trailed off, having no words for the expression on Harry's face.

Harry knew he should say 'yes, of course, why would I not be fine?' but his skull felt like it was on fire, an agony that radiated from his scar. "No," he said, burying his face in his desk. "My head's going to explode."

Crabbe looked alarmed. Naturally, instead of calling for the teacher, he prodded Draco in the arm, because in the world of Crabbe, Draco had an answer for everything.

In this case his answer was, "Sorry, Professor, Potter needs the hospital wing," and then the blond boy was dragging him out of the classroom. He scooped up a rooster along the way, tucking it under one arm. The roosters were more or less resigned to their fates by this point, so it did not protest this treatment.

"You didn't have to do that," said Harry, pushing his palm against the back of his skull like he could stem the throb by applying pressure. It didn't work.

"What, get out of class? Think I did," smirked Draco. "Mind you, you do look pretty awful. You weren't faking, were you?"

Harry hesitated. While the pain would go away on its own, it was possible that the matron would be able to give him something against future headaches.

_Merlin, yes_, mumbled Voldemort, who was still cranky and subdued.

"Unfortunately, no," he said.

When they arrived at the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey gave them a stern look-over, but her face softened when she looked at Harry. He couldn't see himself, obviously, but for Draco to notice at all he probably had to look fairly miserable.

She banished Draco to a chair next to one of the empty beds and set about examining Harry.

"Sit down, Mr Potter. Headaches, is it?" she asked, not unkindly. "I shouldn't wonder, really," she added, eyeing the scar on his forehead. Harry, who was not in the habit of showing it off, fought back the urge to flatten his fringe.

She murmured some brief diagnostic charms, which seemed to give her no useful answers, and then gently touched the scar with her fingers. "Inflamed," she said, curiously.

"Is that bad?" Harry asked, rubbing at it once her fingers had gone.

She pursed her lips. "Not necessarily," she said finally. "Curse scars can be a bit tricky, and yours is the only one of its kind in the world. It would be hard to say what might be normal for that sort of injury. Do you often get these headaches?"

"Sometimes," Harry admitted. Then, "Usually in Defence."

"Hmm," said Pomfrey. "Well, as I said, there's no precedent for curse scars inflicted by the Killing Curse. The best I can do for you is to give you a headache potion and send you on your way. If it gets worse after you've taken it, you'll come straight back here and I'll refer you to a specialist at St Mungo's."

Harry nodded, mindful of his head. It was fading now, slowly but surely. At least he felt like he could think again. He nevertheless dutifully drank the potion the matron handed him. It spread through him in a rush, and chased the ache in his head away with cool, soothing fingers.

"Thanks," he said, marvelling at how much better he felt.

The matron smiled at him and let him go with a wave of her fingers. They probably should have, but Harry and Draco didn't go back to class. They certainly would have gone, had it been taught by McGonagall or Snape, but Quirrell was an altogether less threatening figure, and he inspired very little obedience in his pupils.

It was as they were setting down to lunch with the rest of their year mates that Voldemort emerged from his thoughtful slump. _I think,_ the voice said finally, _we need to keep a better eye on Quirrell._

_After Samhain?_ Harry asked hopefully.

Since that night was less than a week away, Voldemort magnanimously relented, and Harry was allowed to go unmolested about his business for a few more days.

So it was that on Samhain night, when the other students began to trickle down to the Hallowe'en feast, Harry and Draco remained in their common room, citing the need to finish up a Potions essay. Potions was the strategic choice, because no Slytherin would suggest that a feast was more worthwhile than avoiding Snape's wrath.

Unfortunately, they wouldn't be the only ones remaining behind. Many of the fifth years , struggling with their early OWL-preparation assessments, lost all sense of perspective and most of their will to live and completely gave up on eating or sleeping and just huddled in the common room inside towering fortresses of dog-eared books. While it was a terrifying warning of things to come in their academic future, on that Samhain eve it was also bloody inconvenient.

Alone, Harry might have used the Chamber, but there was no way he was taking Draco down there; the potential for blackmail alone was staggering.

It was Draco's suggestion, in the end, that they use Myrtle's toilet. "It's perfect," he'd said. "Nobody ever goes in there anymore, and all the ghosts do their own thing on Samhain."

While it seemed tremendously undignified, Harry had to admit that it was also very practical.

So when the last of the first years had left, they headed up to Myrtle's loo to begin their illicit ritual. Harry felt nervous and a little bit excited. He had to admit, there was a bit of a thrill to this harmless rule-breaking.

Setting up for the ritual was straightforward, since all they needed were harvest foods, grape wine and a fire in a vessel.

The ritual Voldemort had given to Harry involved killing a calf and sharing the meat, but logistics had made that just too difficult for the first years. Harry mentioned the variation to Draco while they were setting their spoils out on his cloak.

"My family uses fruit," said Draco confidently. "Some of the others do use cattle and goats or what-have-you, but autumn fruit is fine. It really depends on what you have - the Malfoy family doesn't raise cattle, but we have private orchards, so -" he waved one hand expressively.

Harry nodded. "That makes sense," he said. "I wonder if my family had anything," he wondered.

"_Pots_, Potter," said Draco, taking the wine from him to set it out next to the pears. "It's only in your name."

"Pots," Harry repeated. How terribly dignified. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised.

Draco shrugged. "I understand poor people have to make a living somehow," he said, smirking over at Harry. "Might as well be pots. Merlin knows you might have been _Harry Janitor_ or_ Harry Undertaker_. Actually, that one does sound a little more dign- oww," he added, when Harry threw an apple into his chest.

"Hurry up, you enormous prat," said Harry, rolling his eyes.

Draco rolled up his sleeves and with a flick of his wand cast a charm that resulted in a bowl full of bluebell flames. They settled down at either side of it, cross-legged on the floor, and Draco said: "I should probably warn you: burnt offerings don't always smell really good."

"I can imagine," Harry murmured, wrinkling his nose.

Together they cut slices of their fruits and laid them balanced on the edge of the bowl, so that the flames licked and slowly devoured the protruding parts. Almost immediately, Harry could smell the cooking sugars.

"So, we let that burn, and recite our lineage as far as we can remember, is that right?"

Draco nodded. "Mostly. We only really go back as far as about 1040," he admitted. "It's too long and messy otherwise."

"Oh," said Harry. 1040. He'd almost forgotten the enormous history behind Draco's family. Harry had done his best, but the Potter line wasn't actually all that readily available. They had been one of the families to protest their inclusion in the Pure Blood Directory of the 1930s, and before then most family trees had been kept in the family. If he wanted to know more about the Potter line, Harry suspected he'd need access to their vault - and Gringotts still hadn't gotten back to him. "Well, I don't really know that far back, but I did find my grandmother's family line."

"It'll be fine," said Draco. "D'you want me to start?" At Harry's nod, he began: "I, Draco Lucius Malfoy, call out to those who came before me." He went on to list by name the relatives he could remember, following the male line. Harry noticed that he did not include the names of any living witches or wizards. Harry hadn't known that custom, but it made perfect sense. The depressing reality was that Harry did not need to revise his own list at this new information.

_You've probably got some second or third cousins around somewhere still alive_, said Voldemort speculatively, while Draco was still in the seventeenth century somewhere, swiftly reciting the family of Brutus Malfoy.

Second cousins would probably be all right, but it wasn't the same as having a mother or a father or even a grandparent you could look to and say 'this is where I come from'.

_I know_, said Voldemort, sounding detached._ But you'll get over it._

Harry wondered if he'd have to cut his soul out to do it.

Voldemort didn't answer.

At long last Draco was winding up, the names moving backwards from their grand Roman trappings to old French variations, and even a few anglo-saxon names cropped up in the list: A Rainald was sired by an Æthelred somewhere in Flanders, and then finally he finished with Armand Malfoy sometime in the eleventh century, and then concluded his calling with an invitation to take the meal with them.

The last sound of Draco's voice hung flat and heavy on the air for a second, and then an awful chill raced through the room.

There was a cold, swiftly-rising magic that stole Harry's breath and made his ears pop with its pressure. The blue flames hissed as the juice from some of the fruit fell into them, and their cold light burned in Draco's pale eyes.

A shuddering sigh went through the room like the breath of a frost giant. The fire burned low for a few long seconds.

Then three of the fruit slices went up in smoke, spitting and cracking as they burned up, much faster than their little fire could account for, and then the blue flames surged up, streaming nightmarish shadows onto the tiles. The shapes they made had little to do with the objects in the room.

The restless air faded slowly and stilled, but the chill didn't leave, and the pressure of the magic they'd raised remained.

With blue fire dancing in his eyes, Draco took a slice of hot apple from the bowl and bit into it. It crunched between his teeth. "Your turn."

Harry swallowed and nodded. "I, Harry James Potter, call out to those who came before me." He took a deep breath and began to call their names: "Lily Potter and James Potter, son of Charlus Potter and Dorea Potter, daughter of Violetta Black and Cygnus Black, son of Ursula Black..." he breathed slowly. He couldn't remember it all, but he could remember the names well into the seventeen hundreds. He was wary of getting it wrong, so he finished up with Misapinoa and Arcturus, and quietly invited them to share in his offerings.

The magic in the room rose to unbearable heights. It felt as though the air had become thick and liquid and freezing. Breathing made his lungs burn. The chill that rushed through the room was so cold and fierce that it hurt.

The fruit in the fire spat, blackened and burned, filling the air with the smell of burned sugar. Only one piece remained, a thin slice of apple slowly leaking its juice down the side of the bowl.

Harry struggled to inhale through the burning cold. He picked up the last slice, brought it slowly to his mouth and bit into it. Hot, sweet flavour burst on his tongue and sent a warm shiver through him.

Silently, Draco uncapped their flask of wine, took a drink and handed it to Harry.

Harry drank. The wine was from red grapes, and a lot warmer than he was. His hands were starting to shake from the cold when he held the flask out and deliberately spilled the rest of the wine over the fire.

The flames hissed and went out.

So did all of the other lights.

They waited in the dark for a few long, breathless seconds, shivering with cold. Slowly, the room's candles flickered back to life, and the room filled with warmth again. Harry could hear the distinctive sound of cracking ice somewhere deeper in the room.

"Wow," he exhaled shakily and looked around. The mirrors were streaked with condensation that would leave ugly marks on the glass, and the air smelled disgustingly like burning food.

"Pretty cool, huh?" said Draco smugly, grinning at him.

"_Brilliant_," said Harry. Inside his head, Voldemort didn't smile, but there was a settled, satisfied feeling to his presence, like a cat curled up by the hearth.

It took them a few minutes before they even wanted to stand up, but eventually they had to. They got to their feet, balanced on shaking knees like newborn foals, and began packing up.

"I didn't know that," said Draco abruptly after a few more seconds of silence. "About - you're related to Cygnus Black."

"Neither did I, but I found out Dorea Potter was my grandmum when I went to Gringotts and did the blood thing. She's -"

"Dorea _Black's_ my mother's great aunt," said Draco.

Harry straightened up and frowned at Draco. "Oh," he said. "So you're -?"

"Second cousin once removed," said Draco, who was after all very practiced at understanding how people were related.

Harry frowned. "You don't sound happy," he said slowly.

Draco blinked. "No, I'm - it's good. I just... don't think my mother knows? That you're her second cousin, I mean. I should tell her. You don't mind?"

_Say yes even if you do mind_, said Voldemort. _Even if Draco doesn't invite you to visit, Narcissa almost certainly will._

Harry shook his head. He wouldn't have minded anyway. "Of course not," he said. "I'd -" he paused. "Er, well, I don't have a lot of family. I'd like to meet her sometime, if it's possible."

Draco gave him a surprised look, which quickly turned considering. Then he smiled. "I'll write to her," he said.

They finished packing up with a new, comfortable familiarity. "

Of course, the moment they left Myrtle's bathroom, they very nearly walked into Professor McGonagall.

"Mr Malfoy! Mr Potter!" She said, staring at them incredulously. "Why are you not in your common room?"

They blinked. "Curfew isn't -" Harry said, looking for a clock.

Her lips thinned. "There is a troll loose in the school, Mr Potter. All students have been instructed to return to their dormitories - which you two would know, had you been present at the Hallowe'en feast with the rest of the students." She looked around, eyes narrowing. "Instead of in the girls' toilet," she added, in a deeply suspicious voice. "What were you doing in there?"

"Er," said Harry, and froze. What do I tell her? he asked Voldemort.

_She'll smell the smoke_, said Voldemort. _She's more than part cat._

"We wanted to see where the monster came up," said Draco quickly. "Thought Hallowe'en would be, you know -"

McGonagall eyed him suspiciously, and then pushed open the door behind them. A soft waft of burning apples followed them out.

"I see," she said, regarding them frostily. If possible, her lips thinned even further with how hard she'd pressed them together.

Harry swallowed.

"Mr Malfoy, that ritual may not be illegal," she said this with her mouth in a very thin line, as though she was not at all sure _why_ it hadn't yet been criminalised, "but it is very much in violation of the rules of this school. Detention for both of you and - yes, ten points each from Slytherin house, I think. I will escort you to your common room, and you may explain this mess to Professor Snape."

This she did, marching the boys along with her in stony silence. When they entered the dungeons they came upon Snape almost immediately.

"Minerva, I - Ah," he said, looking at them. His eyes slid over Harry like he wasn't even there to land directly on Draco. "You found them."

"In the girls' toilet, performing a Dark ritual," she said tartly. "Yes."

She gave him a very challenging look, to which Professor Snape replied: "A fascinating coincidence, as I've just found Mr Weasley and Miss Granger trying to do battle with a full grown mountain troll in the first floor girls' toilet."

This was when Harry noticed the pair hovering behind Snape's impressively billowy black cloak. Ron Weasley looked thunderous, but Hermione Granger looked as though she'd been crying.

McGonagall eyed them.

Snape's expression didn't change at all. "I'll leave you to see to their punishment, shall I?" he asked, a bit pointedly.

With a few choice mutterings, the hostages were exchanged and McGonagall herded her miscreants away.

"Fighting a _mountain troll_?" Draco hissed quietly as they were swept toward the Slytherin common room, propelled before the miserable force of Snape's overwhelming personality.

Harry shook his head uncertainly. That was what he'd heard, but he wasn't sure what to think of it.

_Gryffindors_, said Voldemort, yawning. He made it sound as though this was in itself a complete explanation as to why anybody would dash around the castle looking for monsters to vanquish.

Harry was expecting a lecture at the very least, but all that happened was that Snape cuffed Draco - rather lightly, all things considered - over the head and said, "You wouldn't have been caught but for the troll," in a low voice. "_Don't_ let it happen again, Mr Malfoy."

"No, sir," said Draco quickly.

And then Snape released them back into the wild - or at least into the Slytherin common room - and he turned away, all without ever acknowledging that Harry was even there.

"Is he limping?" Harry murmured, tilting his head. It was hard to tell: Snape was an angular sort of person and he wore clothing that dragged and flapped around him like the wings of an enormous bat. But Harry thought there was an odd list to his gait.

"If he is," said Draco, tugging Harry back through the wall that was the entrance to the Slytherin common room, "it's none of our business. We're in enough trouble for one night."

Harry couldn't help but agree. "It could have gone better," he admitted.

_It could have gone worse, too,_ said Voldemort philosophically. _What's one detention?_

This, Harry thought, was a fair point. Even the promise of a detention to come couldn't really stop him feeling excited and happy that he'd finished his first Samhain ritual and discovered a new cousin, all in one night.

* * *

Uh, thanks to Lord Toewart for pointing out to me that I uploaded the wrong content about three minutes after posting. Well-caught, Comrade. Sorry. ._.


	11. Chapter 11

Harry had not even served detention for his last bout of rule-breaking before he found himself sneaking around the castle in the middle of the night at Voldemort's behest.

_Don't bother,_ said Voldemort when Harry raised his wand to Disillusion himself. _The portraits alerted everybody to a vague blur roaming the castle when we stole the book_, he reminded Harry. _If you get caught using an incomplete Disillusionment Charm, your punishment is likely to be a lot more severe than another detention._

Harry supposed this was ultimately correct, but it didn't stop him from feeling awfully exposed while he crept through the dark, silent corridors. Most of the portraits were actually dozing; only those whose paintings were already nocturnal seemed at all alert.

He crept out of the dungeons and up to the ground level, then took the grand staircase up to the third floor, all of which was made far more complicated by the lack of light. Light, Voldemort had sneered, was easy to follow: it ruined an explorer's night vision and drew attention to clandestine activities.

It was true that sneaking into the forbidden third floor corridor was basically the last thing Harry wanted to be caught doing.

_Is this the right place?_ He asked Voldemort silently a few minutes later, hesitating outside the innocuous wooden door.

_Yes,_ said Voldemort. _Open it._

Harry tapped the door with his wand, whispering, "_Alohamora_." He heard the telltale click of the tumblers falling into place, and then, very cautiously, he pushed the door open.

There was a monster on the other side. Unlike the rest of the castle, it was wide awake. Harry froze under its terrible stare.

Technically it was canine, but Harry had a difficult time trying to reconcile this glowering, growling horror with any regular dog. Three enormous heads loomed twenty feet in the air, with six slitted yellow eyes and teeth like curved knives flashing brightly, bared at Harry's small form.

Its paws looked big enough to crush an adult.

It growled like an encroaching thunderstorm, spittle foaming at its lips, and took one very deliberate step toward Harry.

Startled into movement by the heart-thundering danger of a terrible death, Harry pulled the door closed again, turned, and walked away.

His heart was beating against his ribcage, hammering like a trapped thing looking for a way to flee. He swallowed the heavy thump of his pulse and walked quickly.

_It's a Cerberus_, said Voldemort, although Harry noticed that he didn't rebuke him for staging an expeditious retreat._ They're really rare, used for guarding treasure._

"Treasure," repeated Harry, forgetting to respond only in thoughts. A few nearby portraits snuffled in their sleep, but none woke up, and he ignored the spike of alarm he'd felt at the loud sound of his own voice.

_Yes. Not quite as rare as a sphynx_, said Voldemort,_ but less likely to give up your treasure to the first person who enjoys riddles. Whatever they're keeping in there, it must be valuable. _He paused._ Maybe not. What's valuable enough to protect with a Cerberus, but not valuable enough to ward the doors against student-grade unlocking spells?_ He sounded skeptical.

Harry was also skeptical. Even if the supposed treasure wasn't valuable the way Voldemort evidently expected, it seemed like it would be a good idea to ward the doors just to prevent disobedient students from going in and being eaten.

He went back to the Slytherin dungeons, padding quietly through the castle's broad, cold corridors.

There was a worrisome moment when, by chance, he saw Snape's distinctive silhouette streamed against the wall by the light of a torch. He ducked into an alcove, flat against the wall in the shadows, and listened to the footsteps snap past.

There was a swish of heavy fabric nearby - very nearby - and Harry swallowed silently. And then Snape stalked past and didn't even look toward Harry.

_Doesn't he sleep?_ he wondered, hardly daring to breathe as he watched Snape's retreating back.

_Insomnia would account for his delightful personality_, murmured Voldemort.

The tall man turned a corner and Harry sagged against the wall in relief.

Of course, when he got back to the common room, Millicent Bullstrode was curled up in an armchair reading a battered copy of _The Curse of the Silver Broom_. She looked up when Harry came in, and he froze.

"Er," he said.

"You're letting the cold air in," she said placidly.

He hurriedly stepped in so the wall could close behind him.

Bullstrode pointedly ignored him, and he decided not to push his luck. He went up to the dorm room and slipped past the softly snoring forms of Crabbe and Goyle to get to his own bed.

_What do you think it is_? Harry asked when he was safely in bed.

Voldemort's thoughts were ticking over, but quietly._ I'm not sure,_ he admitted. _A student might be able to get through the door, but he wouldn't know how to get past the Cerberus. And there will be other protections._

_There will_? Harry felt as though a giant three-headed dog was a good enough protective measure for pretty much anything. He certainly didn't feel like going back and confronting it.

_You can put them to sleep very easily_, said Voldemort dismissively. _To a well-researched adult wizard, that would be no protection at all. There must be others, more subtle ones._

He fell silent then, and Harry closed his eyes.

_It's almost an invitation_, said Voldemort pensively, just as Harry drifted off to sleep.

He dreamed of the orphanage's monochrome, gleaming walls and endless corridors. He wasn't afraid of it anymore, but it was still cold and bleak. He climbed the narrow steps to Voldemort's room.

The boy was there, tall and barely sixteen, dark haired and pale skinned. He was sitting on the table by the window, pressed up close to the glass, and he didn't turn to look at Harry when he came in. He didn't say anything.

Harry looked around. The room was almost exactly as he remembered it, but with one strange difference. Where the window had once looked out on grey skies and constant drizzling rain, now it showed colour, light and -

Hogwarts.

Harry came up to the window, peering out, heedless of Voldemort's proximity. It showed flashes of memory: green grass, bright sun, the Great Hall at dinner - and also Quirrell's trembling hands, Dumbledore's glittering blue eyes, darkness underground overlaid by the hiss of an enormous snake, the cold glow of blue fire at Hallowe'en. Lastly, it showed the Cerberus: huge and slavering, with six glowing eyes and bright teeth.

Finally, the boy at the window turned his head toward Harry.

Harry started. His face was flat and bloodless and his eyes were a smoky red.

"Voldemort?" he said in a frightened whisper. This was not how he thought of the voice in his head.

He looked like something dead.

If he was expecting a warmer greeting, Voldemort didn't let it show. He nodded toward the window. "Look," he pointed, finger pressed to the glass.

The image of the Cerberus froze. Harry followed his finger. "A trap door? It's guarding a trap door?"

Voldemort was silent.

"Is this where you live?" said Harry, turning away from the window. The orphanage was an awful place to be.

The man didn't look back. Harry supposed he'd seen it all many, many times before.

"I can't leave," he said simply.

"You could break the window," said Harry, hugging his arms.

Voldemort turned his cruel red eyes on Harry. "I could," he agreed, "but then you'd be dead and I'd have no hands. I'd have to possess somebody."

"Oh," said Harry. Then, "Am... am I possessed?" He thought he knew the answer, but he wanted Voldemort's response.

He didn't get it.

"Go back to sleep," said Voldemort wearily. "You know how."

Harry left him there, picking over Harry's short memory of the Cerberus.

The evening set aside for Harry and Draco to serve detention came. The cantankerous Argus Filch collected them from the Great Hall and led them down into the grounds. Mrs Norris trailed behind, meowing plaintively until he let her leap into the crook of his elbow.

While they were walking, Filch entertained them with stories of detentions back in the good old days, which all seemed to involve a lot of thumbscrews and hanging students in chains from the ceiling.

The moon was bright, but wayward clouds blocked its light from time to time. Winter was starting to set in with a vengeance and the night air was biting cold.

They went down to a hut on the edge of the forest. It was small and mishapen, but its windows were lit with a warm golden glow. Several deep, booming barks came from inside, and then a huge shadow came through its brightly lit doorway.

The man that came forward to collect Harry and Draco for their detention was the same one Harry had seen when he arrived on the train. He was still enormous, but now, late at night and backlit by the glow of light spilling out from inside the hut, he looked demoniac and quite as frightening as the Cerberus.

_Rubeus Hagrid?_ Voldemort's voice sounded hard and scornful in Harry's head. _He's not frightening. He's barely even a wizard._

Along with this comment, Harry received the rather vague information that Voldemort had at some stage been responsible for Hagrid's expulsion from Hogwarts, and that it didn't matter much because Hagrid was a half-giant and completely pants at magic anyway.

Harry thought that this was not being entirely fair, but Voldemort wasn't in the business of being very fair so he kept these thoughts to himself as best as he could.

_It was only a matter of time anyway_, said Voldemort, more placidly. _Besides, I never lied about him anyway. He was remarkably good with magical beasts and monsters, and he saw no problem with raising them inside the school._

That actually did sound kind of dangerous. Harry frowned.

"I'll be back at dawn," Filch was saying to Hagrid, leering unpleasantly down at the pair of first years, "for what's left of them."

Draco looked at Harry with more than a hint of panic, which Harry didn't really share.

"You're not taking us into that forest?" Draco demanded, turning now to Hagrid.

The Gamekeeper's enormous, bushy eyebrows rose into his hair. "I certainly am," he said, and Harry got the distinct impression he was affronted by Draco's peremptory tone.

"We can't go in there at night! There's all sorts of things in there - werewolves, I heard." He looked positively ill at this idea.

"Mighta thought've that before yeh went runnin' about doin' dark magic in the castle, then," said Hagrid. "Specially you, Harry. I knew yeh mum an' da and they'd be pretty ashamed of that, I reckon."

Harry didn't very much like having some strange man pass moral judgement on him on the strength of some arbitrary connection with his parents. This man didn't even know him. And his parents were -

Well, he'd never known them anyway. Who cared what they'd think?

Voldemort made a deep, scornful sound. _If he was such a good friend of your parents, where was he when you were with the muggles?_

Voldemort was annoyed, for sure, but this time Harry was quite sure that the anger in his head was his own. He looked furiously up at the huge man and thought a variety of rude things, none of which he put to voice - mostly because he didn't need another detention.

Hagrid was giving him a look that seemed torn between concerned and wary. After a few moments of stony silence, he turned and led them toward the hut.

"Why is the forest so dangerous, then?" Harry asked Draco, trying to relax his clenched teeth.  
The blond shook his head. He looked paler than ever, and Harry didn't think it was just the moonlight. "All sorts of things live in there. Werewolves, like I said -"

Harry glanced up. "It's not a full moon," he said reasonably, falling into step as they trailed after Hagrid.

"- and acromantulas -"

"Acro-what?" Harry asked, scrunching his nose at the word.

"Spiders," Draco clarified. "Really, really big spiders."

_If they were just big spiders, it wouldn't be a problem,_ said Voldemort. _But they're also as smart as the average wizard, and terribly bloodthirsty_. The image he sent to Harry made him recoil.

"I'm not sure what it is about this school that attracts giant, man-eating monsters," Harry said bitterly.

Draco frowned but slowly nodded. "First there was the basilisk, and then the troll," he said contemplatively.

"And now werewolves and giant spiders," Harry added. He was struck, suddenly, by a bolt of inspiration. If Hagrid was the Gamekeeper, and he was so good with beasts and monsters, it stood to reason - "Not to mention that giant three-headed dog they're keeping in the castle," he added, watching Hagrid's enormous back for any indication that the words had affected him.

"They're keeping a _Cerberus_ in the castle?" Draco squawked, while Hagrid wheeled around on them and bellowed, "How'd you know about Fluffy?"

_Fluffy_, said Voldemort into the silence after this explosion of noise, _of course._

"That dog's _yours_!" Harry exclaimed.

"Of course he is," growled Hagrid. "Beats me how you even know about him," he added with an unfriendly look.

Harry tried to look innocent and, failing that, tried to look blank. He suspected he looked a bit pained instead. He thought about it for a second, but since he'd already revealed he knew about the dog - about, ehem, _Fluffy_ - there was no reason not to ask more questions. In fact, it would look strange if he wasn't curious, and Hagrid was -

_Stupid_, Voldemort supplied.

"If there's a Cerberus," Draco said, following the thought to its most obvious conclusion, "it's got to be guarding something."

Hagrid looked furious, and increasingly suspicious. "Now you listen here," he growled. "Yer meddlin' in things that don't concern yeh - it's dangerous, it is. You forget that dog and you forget what it's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel -"

Here Hagrid cut off suddenly and guiltily, but Harry didn't even notice. Harry's senses were reeling in the flood of Voldemort's sudden exultation.

_Flamel!_ He crowed. His voice filled Harry's head like the buzzing of a hundred bees, vibrating excitement down his spine. He was too agitated to explain any of this feeling to Harry, and his mind leapt from thought to thought with a lightning swiftness that reminded Harry that he was, in fact, a genius.

Images and thoughts rushed across Harry's mindscape, fleeting and only half-realised before Voldemort discarded them and leapt to the next one, none of which Harry understood.

Harry took a deep, calming breath and tried to concentrate on external events - how Hagrid paused outside the hut to call for his enormous dog, Fang, and then led them to the forest's edge, talking about their task for the night.

It was very difficult going for a few moments, and Harry did miss some of what was being said. By the time Voldemort had brought himself from a boil to a simmer, they were looking at a silvery stain on the ground.

"- find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery."

_That's unicorn blood_, said Voldemort, abruptly serious.

"And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?" Draco demanded. He sounded terrified.

"There's nothin' that lives in the forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang," said Hagrid, rather more confidently than Harry thought the statement warranted.

Voldemort wasn't convinced either._ I wouldn't have said there was anything in that forest that could even catch a unicorn, much less kill it. They don't have any natural predators._

_Really? We use them in potions, though_, Harry frowned, listening to Hagrid explain that Harry and Draco would go with the dog and he, Hagrid, would go on alone, and what colour sparks to send up if they found something.

_Some parts are used in potions_, said Voldemort, _but not the blood. Unicorn blood is risky at the best of times. If you don't have the unicorn's consent to harvest it, it - well,_ he paused. _It will keep you alive, no matter how sick or injured you are, but it carries a curse._

_A curse?_ Harry asked in surprise. Hagrid was leading them into the darkness under the canopy, and Draco was looking more and more on edge as they went. Fang's thick tail thumped against Harry's calf enthusiastically - the dog, evidently, had no problems with heading into the forest.

_Unicorns are powerfully magical, even if they don't use the same kind of magic we do. They're usually harmless unless threatened, but it's - not wise_, the voice said carefully, _to cross one._

Harry had not considered the idea of magical animals actively using magic like that, but he supposed it made sense.

They walked just far enough into the forest for the trees to obscure all hints of the open air, and then Hagrid went one way and directed Harry and Draco to start searching in the other direction with Fang.

Harry glanced at Draco, and found it immediately obvious that, whatever his other qualities, Draco Malfoy was a coward.

_Strategic cowardice is better termed 'self-preservation'_, said Voldemort a bit pointedly. _It's little wonder you've not heard of it._

Harry thought that was very unfair, because all of the stupid things he'd done recently were largely done at Voldemort's urging, and he was starting to get very sick of feeling like he was in danger, so -

_You're not really frightened of the things you should be,_ Voldemort said.

Harry, who was trying to forget the incident with the basilisk, declined to bring it up. _That dog was pretty scary_, he pointed out.

_And yet you're a lot more frightened of a properly executed Severing Charm_, Voldemort drawled.

Harry supposed he had a point, but he chose not to pursue that line of thought.

Useful or not, Draco's nerves weren't going to help them here. Harry squared his shoulders. "Right," he said. "Come, Fang." And he strode off into the forest, forcing Malfoy to either follow or be left alone in the dark.

He followed.

The forest was dark and cold. Harry held out his wand and lit the tip with a charm. The ground was covered with the dead leaves of early winter and they rustled as the two boys walked through them, picking out the little spots of silvery unicorn blood as they went. Sometimes it seemed to Harry that he could hear something else, too: a soft, slithering noise of something dragging on the leaves. But every time they paused, the sound was gone.

Nervously, he wondered if the basilisk really _had_ gone back to the Chamber.

Voldemort was conspicuously silent on that score.

Harry thought about sharing his insight with Draco for all of a second. Forewarned might well be forearmed, but ignorance remained blissful - and Harry was not at all confident in the strength of his friend's nerves.

They followed the trail of silvery blood for some minutes and Harry strained to hear the noises of other things in the forest, but it was strangely silent.

At last, they came upon something silvery and glowing in the moonlight through the trees. Harry stepped forward to see what it was, but he knew even before he had a clear view from the lurch in his gut.

A horrible, inescapable grief swept through Harry.

The unicorn was beautiful, and it was dead.

He swallowed. "I guess we found it," he said quietly, heavily, glancing to Draco.

The blond boy looked about as happy as Harry felt, unable to tear his gaze from the dead unicorn. He nodded at Harry's comment. "Who would do that?" he asked, and if his voice wasn't very steady, Harry couldn't blame him.

Harry shook his head.

The silence weighed heavily for a second while they stared at the dead animal on the forest floor.

That quiet struck Harry as odd. He had expected it to be full of the quiet sounds of nocturnal animals, perhaps the drumming hooves of a deer or the scrambling claws of something in a tree, but instead there was nothing.

Nothing except their footsteps, Fang's soft panting, and the slippery swish of something slithering over the leaves out in the trees.

"We'd better send up sparks," said Draco after a pause.

Harry wondered if Draco could feel something subtly wrong, too - something other than the dead unicorn - but he couldn't tell. Terrified or not, Draco had a good poker face.

"Yeah," said Harry, raising his wand.

The sound of something slithering over the leaves came again, much closer now, and Harry froze. Draco and Fang froze, too. He could feel the tension singing down Draco's stiff arm right next to him.

A shadow detached itself from the still forest and slunk from the surrounding underbrush to the unicorn.

Draco made a thin noise in his throat. Fang whimpered.

The shadow looked up.

There was a moment of silence and recognition. A horrible suspicion dawned inside Harry's head, and he wasn't sure which of them had thought it first.

But in that second of silence, all he could hear was the steady thump of his own heart and Voldemort's clear, precise voice:

_Run_, he said.

The shadow rose, and Harry got a glimpse of pale lips, a white chin, clean-shaven, smeared with silvery blood - and then the shadow looked straight at him and Harry's scar burned, the world was on fire, he couldn't see -

"_RUN!_"

- and he was being hauled, dragged -

Harry stumbled blindly after the pressure of something dragging on his cloak. There were spots in his vision and his head felt like it was submerged in boiling oil. His feet caught in the roots of a huge tree, and he tumbled onto his face.

He could hear the slithering of the shadow's cloak behind him. It was coming closer.

_Get __**up**__, you idiot!_ Voldemort shrieked in his head.

Draco hauled on his arm, and Harry rolled, staggered to his feet - and then suddenly Draco was pulling him behind the trunk of an enormous tree, where they stopped and tried to quieten their breathing.

"Don't move," said Harry, almost silently against Draco's hair, and he felt him nod. He gripped his wand and then smartly rapped them both over their heads, deftly applying his Disillusionment charm.

If the thing in the cloak was human, Harry's blurry charm would be as good as true invisibility in the darkness. He clung harder to Draco, listening to the slithering hiss of the approaching shadow.

Draco's hands were wrapped around Harry's elbow, and even if he couldn't see him anymore, he could feel the other boy trembling. He had no idea where Fang was, but hopefully he'd run off to get Hagrid.

After a few long moments, Harry could pick out the black shadow moving across the forest floor. It was quieter now, a single dark patch moving independently of the others.

It stopped and looked around, examining the darkened trees and the strange shapes and patterns made from moonlight shining down through the leaves. Next to him, Harry could feel Draco holding his breath.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the cloaked figure turned and left, heading back toward the body of the unicorn.

After a few long minutes, Draco exhaled, slowly and shakily.

"Come on," said Harry quietly, still clutching at his arm, and tugged him back toward the clearing where the unicorn lay.

"No," hissed Draco, and dug his heels in. "I'm sending up our bloody red sparks, I'm not going back there!" And he shook Harry's arm off and fired a jet of bright red sparks into the night, signalling to Hagrid that they were in trouble.

"Hang on," said Harry, and quickly dispelled his Disillusionment over both of them. He didn't want it getting back to the Headmaster that he could use that charm.

Presently, they could hear Hagrid crashing through the forest.

"We found the unicorn," said Harry quickly when he arrived, "but -"

"Something was _drinking from it_," said Draco in a tone of great horror.

Hagrid looked at them with a very grim expression, and then headed for the clearing. There was no sign at all of the cloaked figure.

Harry wasn't sure if Hagrid believed them, but they were marched back to the castle with due haste and sent scurrying back to their common room with Hagrid's warning echoing after them: "No _detours_, mind."

They went in silence, recovering their composure after the events of the evening. When they got to the blank stretch of wall that hid their common room, Draco turned to Harry abruptly. "That thing..." he said.

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Harry, shaking his head.

"It's weird," said Draco, looking straight at Harry. "Nobody drinks unicorn blood. It's just - it's not done." He made a face, like he was struggling to explain to Harry a cultural taboo that he had never had a reason to question. "It's not done," he repeated, finally, eyeing Harry. "And that - a Cerberus in the castle," he said, trailing off uncertainly. "And - What did that oaf say? Flamel? - I know I know that name from somewhere."

"I don't think they're necessarily connected," said Harry warily. In fact, he was sure they were connected, and he just hadn't determined how yet.

But Draco didn't need to know that.

Draco did not, in fact, need to know anything.

"And you -" Draco growled.

"Me?" echoed Harry, surprised.

"Don't you think I didn't see what you did back there! That's a fifth year charm, you shouldn't even be able to - _and_ -" he added, when Harry glanced quickly around, looking for an eavesdropping portraits, "- for some reason you don't want anybody to know you can do it."

Draco's pale eyes were like chips of diamond, and there was a flush high across his white cheeks.

Harry had the sinking feeling that he wasn't going to let this go.

He folded his arms. "And you think this is all somehow related to the dead unicorns and Hagrid's giant dog," he drawled, temporising to come up with a good lie that would cover all of these circumstances.

_You could tell him the truth_, Voldemort suggested.

_Uh_, said Harry.

_Not about me_, Voldemort clarified with a sigh, sounding as though he was struggling to understand the sheer scope of Harry's stupidity.

"I don't _know_," said Draco, "because whatever is going on, whatever has been going on for _months_, you won't_ tell me_."

Harry blinked. "Months," he repeated dumbly.

"Yes, Potter," Draco hissed. "_Months_."

Harry opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Draco waited expectantly.

"Come with me," he muttered, and turned to the wall. "We can't talk about this in the corridor."

Draco followed him into their common room. It was empty of students, but a few chickens had settled down for the night not far from the fire, heads tucked away to shield them from the light. Harry picked the corner furthest from any portraits, thinking sourly that this would be an excellent time to whip out his wand and perform a memory charm, if he'd known any.

Harry sat on the leather-upholstered chaise lounge in the corner. Draco stood awkwardly near him, arms crossed, chin tilted pugnaciously.

"All right," said Harry, taking a deep breath. "I learned how to do the charm because I was... probably breaking a lot of rules," he said. Probably, nothing. Harry was sure he'd broken rules the school had not yet invented. "And I didn't want to get caught."

"And now you don't want anybody to know you can do it because then the professors might find out it was you doing whatever you did. Yes, I think I figured that much out on my own," said Draco pointedly, but he finally uncrossed his arms and perched on the edge of the lounge. "So what was this thing? It can't be just sneaking out at night, nobody would go to that kind of trouble just to nick pies from the kitchens."

Harry scratched his scar, trying to come up with an innocuous reason to want to be invisible at will. There wasn't really one.

Voldemort was right in that the truth was a hell of a lot easier to remember than a clever lie. He'd just have to... adapt it, a bit. But any way he looked at it, he didn't exactly come off looking like a hero. "Look, this is... Draco, it's pretty bad, I don't want to..."

"So it would be bad if I told somebody that you could do that charm, then," Draco concluded, nodding. "Like Professor Snape, for instance. Because he likes you so much."

_His father would be so proud,_ said Voldemort's snide voice.

"Yes, okay," Harry sighed. "That would be bad."

He looked at Draco. He didn't think the other boy was likely to repeat anything to a teacher or the headmaster, but he felt fairly certain that whatever Draco knew, his parents also knew. He wondered what they might do with this information.

Draco was watching him.

"Okay, so, firstly, I can speak to snakes."

Whatever Draco was expecting, it certainly hadn't been that. He looked poleaxed for a second, and then his face hardened. "I don't believe you. Say something."

Happily the Slytherin common room had no lack of snake carvings, snake pictures, and snake embroidery. It was something of a motif in the dungeons. Harry glanced at the carved snakes winding their sinuous way up the arm of lounge. He had no idea what to say so he just said, "_Hello._"

It came out in a series of soft sibilant noises.

Draco's face, already pale, was lily-white. "You're actually a parselmouth," he said flatly. Then he recovered. "Fine, you're a parselmouth. What does that have to do with all the rest of... you can talk to snakes," he said slowly, eyes drifting toward the chickens dozing by the fire.

"You've guessed," said Harry. "I learned the spell so I could sneak out to talk to the basilisk."

"Which tried to eat half the students," Draco finished, turning to stare at him.

"_Petrified_," Harry corrected, "_one_ of the students."

"That's... far-fetched," said Draco, eyeing the snakes carved into the chaise like they might come to life at any second.

It was a little, Harry agreed, but not nearly so far-fetched as the truth. He just shrugged. "It's what happened."

"You'd be expelled if they found out," Draco said, looking back up at Harry quickly.

"I..." Harry thought about it. "Maybe," he agreed. He looked Draco in the face. "I guess you'll just have to keep it to yourself."

Draco looked back at him. He tilted his head. Harry could almost see the thoughts ticking over behind his grey eyes. "Guess I will," he agreed.

When they finally went up to bed, Harry found Voldemort a mix of conflicting and poorly-contained emotions.

"What is it?" he whispered, finally, into the early morning darkness when the other man's agitation kept him awake.

_I was right_, said Voldemort, sounding simultaneously pleased and annoyed - and perhaps a little bit excited._ I know exactly what the Cerberus is guarding. Nicholas Flamel's magnum opus: the philosopher's stone. It's famous. Infamous, even. It's the world's greatest alchemical creation, and it's right here in this castle!_

Harry could feel the voice trembling in its overwhelming excitement. He rolled over restlessly. _So it's a pretty valuable treasure, then?_

_The philosopher's stone can produce the Elixir of Life - a potion that will stop you from aging or dying from disease. It's one of the most complete forms of immortality that exists. No nasty side effects, no soul-tearing, no uncertainties. You can't put a price on it._

_So why is it here? Shouldn't Flamel be keeping it under lock and key somewhere?_ Harry frowned into his pillow.

_That's the question, isn't it? If you were Dumbledore, how would you protect the stone?_

_I'm not sure_, Harry admitted._ I probably wouldn't hide it in a school and then tell everybody not to go near the room I was keeping it in,_ he said slowly. In fact, Harry could come up with a number of better plans without even trying.

_Exactly_, mused Voldemort. _And Albus Dumbledore can usually be relied upon to plan better than an eleven year old. So, obviously, he's not protecting the stone. There is only one conclusion: the Cerberus is an invitation. This is a trap, and the philosopher's stone is bait. The perfect bait, really_, he admitted with grudging admiration. _It's so valuable that a wizard could know it's a trap and step into it willingly, just for the chance at getting his hands on it._

There was something powerfully wistful about Voldemort's voice. Eternal life, free from age or disease. Yes, Harry could see how that might be tempting to a lot of people. But nobody baited a trap like that just to catch any wizard who might want the stone. Just from its description, Harry knew that this could be virtually anybody.

_A trap for who?_ Harry asked finally, feeling stumped by the question.

_Can't you guess?_ Voldemort said. _It's a trap for __**me**__._

* * *

I am really excited and happy that so many people have reviewed this story. The response is overwhelming and mostly pretty positive, so thank you very much if you (yes, you, comrade) are one of the lovely and generally very polite people who submitted a review.

Some of the reviews asking questions last update were guests, so I'm going to do that thing where I respond here:

**To the anonymous comrade who asked 'what the fuck is up with harry always being nervous?'**  
Honestly, I thought he'd be a little more anxious than in canon because he has fewer friends and the dark lord lives in his head, and he's engaged in a lot of very dangerous rule-bending. However, since you've kindly pointed it out to me, I will keep an eye on how nervous he sounds in the text, and ask my beta Erica to do the same.

**To the people who PMed me for updates**: Uni started back. I love my degree (nobody does a lit degree because they're hoping to get a job, so I'd better love it) but it does mean less time for writing fanfic. Updates are probably going to take a bit longer. I'm sorry, but that's what goes on.

**To the anonymous comrade who wanted to know about my reasons for including a Samhain ritual:  
**Hallowe'en is celebrated as the day of the dead (or the eve before the day of the dead) by a huge number of people, because of that relevance to the death of your fields and the beginning of the long winter. I could call it Samhain, Hop-tu-Naa, All Saints Eve, Allantide or All Hallow's Eve, but it would be basically the same idea. So! At the time they invaded England, the Normans were actually very Christian. I could have the Malfoys being Christian but I really can't wrap my head around it. So assume that they adopted the magical rituals of the locals sometime in the roughly nine hundred years that they've been living in Wiltshire.**  
**

But, primarily: I put it in for was _fun_ to write about all that ritual stuff, and how Draco has to know the names of his ancestors down to the eleventh century, and how Harry gets to see this weird alternative magic with hair-raising rituals and strange traditions and other stuff I just made up right now because I felt like it. In fact, this whole story exists because I felt like it. I'm not sorry. :P

[The Malfoys, seriously: they also have a Christmas party! Why isn't anybody asking me why they do that? (Please don't ask me why they do that. I don't know, I like Christmas; it smells like pine, it's delicious. Does there have to be a reason?)]

**To Comrade Lord Toewart: **Three minutes, literally. An excellent effort.

**DONE. See you next chapter, comrades!**


	12. Chapter 12

There was silence for a long, sleepless time following that, but there were other things they had to talk about. Even with his head spinning with paranoid questions, Harry knew they had to talk about one thing in particular, and he suspected Voldemort did too.

Harry had felt that awful frission of recognition in the forest, and it was too important - too dangerous - for either of them to ignore.

_That creature in the forest,_ said Voldemort after a very long silence. _I recognised it._

He didn't sound that happy.

Harry nodded silently in the dark._ It was you, wasn't it? Or, well, part of you,_ he amended.

Voldemort made a soft hum of agreement. _The conscious piece. The piece that fled my body when the killing curse rebounded._

His voice was flat and unfeeling, but Harry remembered the furious burn of his scar in the forest and thought that this other Voldemort must have been very unhappy indeed.

_Drinking from the unicorn means he's - I've - already taken the bait. I'd never risk myself to unicorn blood unless I thought I could fix myself in short order._

Or unless there was no other option, Harry thought, and no doubt Voldemort agreed - but neither acknowledged that fleeting thought as it passed over them.

_So_, said Harry, _Dumbledore knows you're alive and your other self is running loose in the grounds._ He tried not to sound too nervous about this prospect, with mixed success. It sounded like a recipe for tremendous catastrophe.

_Not the grounds_, Voldemort corrected, _in the castle._

Harry frowned. He couldn't think that a thing like the man in the forest would go unnoticed for long.

_As I said earlier_, Voldemort reminded Harry, _it wouldn't be corporeal. My spirit would be a... bodiless thing, along for the ride._

Much like the spirit inside Harry, then. Harry had a sudden overpowering fear that one day he'd be the thing in the forest, hunched and bloody over a corpse like a scavenger.

_Don't be ridiculous_, Voldemort dismissed. _That doesn't even make sense. That's stupid. It wouldn't be like this anyway_, he went on, less sharply. _You've grown up adopting to my presence. Living inside an adult, even a willing adult, would be a constant, tooth-and-nail struggle. The body would be dying._

_That's why he needs the unicorn blood,_ Harry concluded after a pause.

_Yes_, said Voldemort. _But when he's dormant, you might never know he's there - except, of course, you react to him. To me. Like calls to like, and the only thing in the way is your head_, he finished, sounding dreadfully amused.

_You mean that it's __**Quirrell**__?_ Harry thought back incredulously.

He couldn't be Voldemort! He stuttered. He was a terrible teacher. He was so... _undignified_.

Voldemort laughed. Harry caught the passing thought that he, Harry, was not actually a very dignified or expected host either.

There were a few moments of thinking silence.

_It does explain the headaches_, Harry said slowly.

_And a lot of other things,_ Voldemort said.

Harry quietly agreed. This other Voldemort seemed to be vastly worse off, constantly embattled and not very stable, and he had a sneaking suspicion that Quirrell probably didn't enjoy the company very much.

_Christmas_, Voldemort said suddenly, breaking Harry's thoughts mid-stream.

_Er. What?_

_You can't stay here_. At Harry's puzzlement, he continued: _Use your brain, boy. As far as he knows, you turned him from a whole person into a parasite inside Quirrell's skull, drinking toxic blood to survive. And the whole Wizarding World credits you with killing him. Me. Us._

_Oh_, said Harry. He'd fallen so easily into the trap of thinking of this strange new creature as a kind of alternative version of his Voldemort. But he wasn't. This would be the Dark Lord he'd read about: irrational, murderous, remorseless and cruel.

To be absolutely fair, the Voldemort in Harry's head ticked many of these boxes on his own, but -

_It's 'irrational' that concerns me_, interrupted Voldemort. _It would be suicidal to try to kill you before I'd - he'd - gotten the stone, but the unicorn blood basically proves that he's not thinking very clearly. What use is it to mark his presence by killing powerful magical animals and then just __**leaving their bodies **__around for that idiot gamekeeper to find?_

Harry nodded slowly. While Voldemort was understandably preoccupied with the poor judgement of his counterpart, Harry was more concerned about his holiday plans. He was pretty certain he could count on Draco to invite him for Christmas - perhaps even a couple of days - but he had anticipated spending the rest of the Christmas holidays alone in the library, researching his history assignment and puzzling out Snape's frankly sadistic potions homework.

But Voldemort evidently thought that this other Voldemort was enough of a mouth-frothing psychopath to warrant fleeing Hogwarts entirely until the students came back.

Harry didn't feel good about that. Where would he go? He couldn't go back to the Dursleys, surely.

_No,_ said Voldemort immediately._ They wouldn't be able to keep you safe, anyway. Better to stay in Wizarding London. In full view of witnesses would be best. We can stay out from under Dumbledore's eyes, now that we know they're snooping._

Harry nodded helplessly. It wasn't what he wanted, but it was better than being dead.

_A lot of things are better than being dead,_ said Voldemort seriously.

It still took Harry a long time to fall asleep.

In the end, Voldemort's certainty that they had to get away from Quirrell gave Harry very little choice. He did not put his name down to stay at Hogwarts over the break, even though he glanced covetously at the paper as it circulated beneath Snape's dark gaze during study period.

In Slytherin, that paper was something of a formality anyway. Most of the students were from such privileged families that leaving Hogwarts for two weeks meant living in ridiculous luxury at home - or wherever 'home' was during the holidays.

"We're staying at our winter house, which is on an adjacent mountain to Nott's," Pansy said when Harry asked about her plans. She was flipping idly through _Witch Weekly_ on one of the long leather couches in the Slytherin common room. "So I'll probably visit with them a lot. What about you?"

"Oh," said Harry, whose stomach was feeling a bit heavy all of a sudden. _Adjacent mountains_. Right. Then, "Er. Just a quiet one, I suppose."

She nodded cheerfully, and did not ask any searching questions. This was the beauty of Pansy's character: she never wanted to ask questions about Harry when she could be talking about herself, and any that she did ask were for form's sake only.

"But you're coming to Draco's, aren't you? For the Christmas party?" She said 'the Christmas party' as though there was only one Christmas party, _the_ Christmas party.

"If I'm invited, sure," said Harry.

She glanced up from the glossy, moving pages of her magazine, a quiet sidelong look. "You will be," she said seriously. "They'd be daft not to invite you. You're friends, obviously, but also - well. Just because so many people still think Draco's dad -"

Draco chose this exact moment to enter the common room, and Pansy shut her mouth on whatever it was she had been saying.

Harry thought he could guess.

"Your name's not on the list," Draco said without preamble, throwing himself onto the couch between them. "You can't be planning to go back to the - to your adop- to your _guardians_?"

Harry shrugged. "I'm not sure," he admitted, glancing at Pansy. It wasn't precisely common knowledge that he lived with muggles. It wasn't that he lied about them, precisely - just that people didn't ask very often, and when they did he changed the subject to something more interesting. "I don't want to, but..."

"What's wrong with Hogwarts?" Draco asked. He sounded almost offended on behalf of the school.

"Nothing's wrong with Hogwarts," Harry said.

_Other than the politics_, said Voldemort.

_You mean other than the traps baited with dangerous magical artefacts -_

_It's not actually __**dangerous**__, you know._

_- slavering monsters around every corner -_

_That door __**was**__ locked, technically._

_- and the fact that the dark lord is possessing my teacher,_ Harry thought loudly._ Oh, and also the headmaster can__** read minds.**_

_Yes_, said Voldemort patiently. _It's all politics, ultimately. Perhaps you'll understand when you're older_, he added, and the voice was dripping with condescension.

Harry ignored this and focused on the conversation he was actually meant to be having.

Draco was giving him an expectant look - because he wanted an explanation, so obviously an explanation would be forthcoming.

Pansy looked between them and the pages of her magazine, lips pursed. "Why shouldn't he want to go home?"

Draco ignored her question entirely.

"Mr Potter," said Snape's voice.

Harry flinched, but he was the only one. The other two just looked at their head of house, who had silently appeared in the entry to the common room.

"Yes, sir," said Harry.

"The Headmaster wishes to see you." Snape's voice was capable of astonishing depth and projection, but for Harry it was very flat indeed. Flat, and hard, and very like his expression.

Harry swallowed. "Yes, sir." He got up from the couch and followed Professor Snape with his head bowed.

_Do you know,_ said Voldemort thoughtfully, _I think that's the first time he's actually spoken to you._

_He takes the roll, sometimes,_ Harry thought back.

_That doesn't count. I wonder what his problem is? Whatever his other problems, he was friends with your mother._

_He - he was?_ Harry's steps faltered. He looked up at the lank hair and sweeping black cloak of the professor. He had seen at least one picture of his mother. She had been red-haired, with lily white skin and shocking green eyes. Even in her photographs she had been a thing of life and beauty. He couldn't even imagine all her glow and colour next to this hard, miserable man.

_He must have been. He begged for her life,_ Voldemort said contemplatively._ It was very brave - suicidally brave - to beg me for the life of a mudblood. Especially one who was prophesied to be my downfall._

Harry was part way through agreeing when he was stilled by a sudden wash of memory: a place with stone columns, marble walls, summer night air sweet and heavy all around. Bodies all in black, bone-white masks. And Snape's trembling hands, stark white against the blackness of his clothes. Voldemort's voice, full of cruel, triumphant pleasure: _You beg of me, Severus? Do you really?_

Snape's shaking voice, like tearing silk in the quiet: _My lord -_

_Begging isn't done on your feet, Severus._

Harry felt cold.

"Don't dawdle," snapped Snape in the hallway ahead of them. He sounded so angry.

Harry's feet felt like lead, but he made them move. "Sorry, sir," he said. His own voice was shaking, but not as much as Snape's had been, that night.

_I killed her anyway,_ Voldemort said conversationally, as though something compelled him to be as cruel as possible, even trapped inside the confines of Harry's head.

Harry swallowed his feelings, burying them too deep for Voldemort to find. _I'd noticed_, he said, and even to himself he just sounded weary.

Professor Snape escorted him to the winding staircase that led to the headmaster's office, but he didn't go up with him. Harry climbed the stairs alone, but when he looked down Snape was watching him with dark and unfriendly eyes.

He ascended and pushed open the door.

The headmaster's office was as Harry remembered it: large, stone, populated by innumerable portraits, and cluttered with a hundred tiny, fascinating objects. The headmaster was sitting behind his desk, staring down into the pages of a large, old-looking book as though it held the secrets of the universe.

_Don't look in his eyes,_ Voldemort reminded him, as though Harry could forget.

He looked up when Harry entered, and Harry had to look quickly away to avoid meeting his glimmering blue gaze. His eyes landed on Fawkes the phoenix, who was sitting on his perch and crooning softly, musically, to himself as he dozed. The bird was still beautiful.

"Have a seat, Harry," said Dumbledore, drawing Harry's attention back to him. Today the man was dressed in a strange combination of green and red and purple, clashing together in an eye-watering pattern that culminated in some very fine, detailed embroidery at his hat.

Voldemort, whose idea of snappy dressing was head-to-toe black and a well-tied tie, felt faintly queasy just looking at him. Harry was just glad that the garish clothing gave him somewhere to look that wasn't at the thin, empty place on the headmaster's bookshelf. For the first time in weeks he thought of the book hidden at the bottom of his trunk.

"Professor Snape has alerted me that you've declined to remain at Hogwarts over the Christmas break," he said.

"Yes," said Harry, because he didn't know what else to say. "Sir," he added belatedly. Dumbledore nodded at his correction.

"I've written," he announced, peeling one heavy page over to look at the next entries in the book, "to your aunt and uncle to let them know you're coming home. They did say they'd received your letter of apology and they'd be glad - well, content - to have you back for the holidays," he smiled benignly at Harry.

Harry nodded.

"I know you haven't always liked it with the Dursleys, Harry," he went on, dialling down the smile to an expression that was soft but serious, "but it is very important that you stay with them."

Harry wasn't sure if it would give his intentions away if he asked. He hesitated. Dumbledore stayed silent, watching him, and then curiosity finally got the better of him. "Why, sir?"

Dumbledore closed the book. Harry got a glimpse of its folding pages - it looked like records of some kind, columns of numbers and dates. "This is not easy to explain, Harry," he warned.  
"That's okay, sir," said Harry, and looked at him expectantly.

The headmaster removed his half-moon spectacles and sighed deeply, rubbing the place where they rested on his nose. It took him a long moment to respond.

"The night your parents died, Harry," he started, and suddenly Harry wasn't actually sure he wanted to hear this, but Voldemort was crowding close and eager in the front of his head, straining against Harry's senses. Even if he didn't want to know, Dumbledore certainly had Voldemort's attention. "As you know, much of the Wizarding World believes that you killed Voldemort that night when his curse rebounded."

Harry nodded.

"Your mother died for you that night, Harry," he said, in a voice that was soft and grave. "She made the ultimate sacrifice to keep you safe, and her protection - her love - is what saved you. Her love is with you still," he added.

Harry frowned.

Voldemort's voice in Harry's head was silent, but he could feel the ideas ticking over, boiling beneath that silence.

"Now, many other people, myself included, do not believe that Lord Voldemort is dead. It's the darkest of magic, but he contrived a way to survive the killing curse. His spirit wanders, but eventually he will return. And when he does, he has every reason to come looking for you, Harry. Your mother's sister shares her blood, so while you're in her house, you are still protected by her love."

Harry stared at him. He said the only thing he could think of: "Sir, I don't think Aunt Petunia loves me."

Now Dumbledore's smile seemed sad. "I'm sure she does, Harry. In her way."

He was moderately to very certain that she did not, but Harry declined to comment. Instead he said, "Are you really sure that it's going to keep Voldemort out?"

"There are few things that are certain," said Dumbledore. "There may yet be a way to get around the wards." His gaze was far off, as though he was thinking of the many different and awful ways Voldemort could indeed get to Harry. "But they are the best protection your mother and I can give you," he said finally. "So please, Harry, do not go wandering around London by yourself anymore."

His blue eyes were searching out Harry's, so Harry looked at his hands in his lap. His fingers looked very white against his dark school robes. He thought back to that memory of Snape's shaking hands and balled them quietly into fists. "Yes, sir," he said.

There was a long silence.

"Well," said Dumbledore when Harry didn't look up and didn't say anything else, "In any case, I've arranged for one of your teachers to travel on the Hogwarts Express with you, and cross over to muggle London with you - just in case you get the wandering urge. You understand, of course," he said, with his voice full of knowing mirth.

Despite a spike of angry protest from Voldemort, Harry was pretty sure that the dull resentment he felt was all his own.

Harry didn't need to look up to know that the headmaster's eyes would be twinkling mischievously - and he certainly didn't need the old man to see the expression in his own face. "Thank you, sir," he said stiffly. "That was very thoughtful of you."

"Not a problem, Harry," said Dumbledore, standing up to escort him out, twinkling at him from over his spectacles. "Not a problem."

He felt the old man's hand press gently between his shoulder blades as he opened the office door, and then Harry was left in the cold stairwell grinding his teeth.

When Harry sat down to dinner that evening, he found that seating arrangements had been manipulated so that his only option was to sit between Draco and Goyle. This did not seem like a coincidence.

He sat down, fighting off a sigh.

"What did Dumbledore want?" Draco asked immediately.

If nothing else, Harry reflected, Draco was at least persistent. He resisted the temptation to respond with 'world peace,' and instead shook his head. "He doesn't want me to leave the Dursleys' home over Christmas," he said instead. "Says it's not _safe_."

It was something of a pity that the thing he most wanted Harry kept safe from seemed to be residing under his own long nose.

"How is it any safer living with a bunch of muggles?" Draco said, hissing 'muggles' like it was a dirty word.

"Your guess is as good as mine." Harry shook his head helplessly. He knew about the wards and his mother's sister's blood now, but he didn't need Voldemort's wary murmur in his mind to tell him to keep it quiet. The fewer people knew about that, the better.

"Why are you going back there, anyway?" Draco asked in a low voice.

Happily, Harry managed to avoid giving a response because a sooty owl flew to him, bringing him a rare evening letter.

"Excuse me," Harry said.

Draco's eyes narrowed, but the parchment was thick and embossed with the scrolling words _Fortius Quo Fidelius_, and a stylised lock-and-key crest. "That's from Gringotts, isn't it?" he said, neatly distracted.

Harry nodded, and flicked open the parchment, scanning it with his eyes. His first thought was that the goblins actually had astonishingly nice handwriting. It looked like something out of a calligraphy book.

The goblins first explained, at length and using a lot of latin, the privacy clauses associated with their bank and - rather unhappily - that who held accounts with the bank was required by law to be a matter of public record following the last great Goblin Rebellion.

Then, below all of that curling black ink, Harry read:

"The current holder of the key to vault 687 is Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc. D. Wiz., X.J. (Sorc.), S. of Mag.Q."

The accounts manager general finished with a sharp reminder that until appropriate identification or a Gringotts key could be produced, no further information about this vault would be forthcoming.

All of the day's earlier resentment and anger rushed back, and Voldemort's rage came hard on its heels, making Harry's head spin. He could feel the dull throb of another really tremendous headache setting in.

_Of course_, hissed Voldemort's voice in the corner of Harry's head.

_You knew this was likely_, said Harry, rubbing his scar and closing his eyes against the sudden feeling of terrible queasiness. His words fell on deaf ears, because of course it wasn't simply this that was making Voldemort angry. He was tired of waiting, tired of hiding, and he hated Dumbledore with a hot and terrible hate.

_He would want to control you by any means possible. Because Harry Potter is the saviour of the Wizarding World_, he added in an awful, bittersweet voice.

Pain made Harry's stomach lurch. He breathed through his teeth. _Harry Potter doesn't want to be the saviour of anybody_, he thought fervently. _Harry Potter just doesn't want to lose his lunch on Goyle's shoes._

At this, the feeling receded slightly, until it was just a steady thump in his head.

"Harry," said Draco, in a tone that suggested he'd said it several times already. Goyle was looking at him. Davis was staring at him from across the other side of the table. Even Zabini was watching.

"You've gone really white," said Pansy unhelpfully, peering at him.

There was a hand on Harry's shoulder, and Draco's narrowed grey eyes were suddenly intent upon Harry's face. "Do you have a headache again?"

For all the attention on him, their voices were almost drowned out by Voldemort's.

"Sorry," said Harry shortly, standing up. He wobbled on his feet and put one hand on the table for balance. "I don't much feel like eating after all. I'll see you back in the common room."

_One day I'll gut him_, the Dark Lord's voice spat in a voice like hellfire, burning behind Harry's eyes while he tried to navigate his way from the Slytherin table and out of the Great Hall. _I won't use magic. I won't even use a knife._

Harry went past the common room and straight up to the empty dorm. He sank onto his bed, where he smoothed out his Gringotts letter, read it once more, and then shoved it in a crumpled ball into the bottom of his trunk.

He slumped back across the covers, feeling sore and uncertain. "That hurt," he said to Voldemort, who didn't deign to respond. After a moment, Harry sighed. "Are the wards really that good a protection?"

_I dislike Dumbledore_, said Voldemort, which Harry understood to be a tremendous understatement, _but if he says the wards are as good as he can make them, then there isn't much chance of Quirrell breaking through._

There was a long pause. Harry could feel the thought forming in Voldemort's voice - he even agreed with it, objectively. But he felt sick and bitter just thinking about it.

_It may be safer there than in London_, said Voldemort finally.

_I don't want to,_ replied Harry, hearing exactly how weak and childish his protest sounded. He hated sounding that way. He didn't _want_ to be weak and childish, he didn't _want_ Voldemort to be disappointed in him or annoyed with him.

_I know,_ said Voldemort.

Harry could accept that these supposedly powerful wards were a good reason to go back to Surrey for the holidays, but he felt restless and unhappy about it. He felt as though by agreeing to do it, he was accepting that his life with the Dursleys was okay. He clenched his jaw and stared at the hangings of his bed.

_I don't want to go back to the Dursleys. They're awful people, and they're - they're __**muggles**_, he said, with all the disgust he felt for them.

_I know_, Voldemort repeated.

Harry rubbed his aching head again. _Why can't we just tell Dumbledore about Quirrell?_ he wondered finally. _There has to be some kind of lie we can come up with that would let him know about Quirrell without letting him know about you,_ he pointed out.

_Don't be daft_, Voldemort said, with the mental equivalent of an eye-roll. _If he knew it was Quirrell, he might move the stone._

The implications of this statement made Harry jerk upright, causing the room to swim unpleasantly. "You _know_ the stone is a _trap_!" he hissed.

_I know. I know, and I must have it_, said Voldemort. He paused. _But not before we visit Malfoy Manor, and not before Christmas. So it's vital that you survive until then, which means returning to the muggles' house for Christmas._

_The Dursleys are the least of my problems,_ Harry said, burying his face in his hands with a groan. _There is no force on earth that will make me fight a giant, three-headed dog,_ he vowed.

_Nobody is going to make you fight the Cerberus_, Voldemort said._ But I can't let your whining damage my chance at having a real, functioning body again._

_No_, sighed Harry. _I suppose not._

When the others came in, Harry pretended to be asleep so he didn't have to talk to any of them.

He heard it when Blaise commented "He's a bloody weirdo," and heard Nott's lower voice make an indistinct but agreeable response, followed by a distinctly hostile grunt from Crabbe.

He shut his eyes and blocked out the voices. He didn't like that some of the other first years thought he was strange and difficult, but there wasn't a lot he could do to fix it. Some of them must have thought he was all right, he reasoned, thinking of Draco and Pansy, and perhaps even Crabbe sometimes, who seemed like a good enough sort.

_Ignore them_, said Voldemort dismissively. _You have more important things to concentrate on. Just go to sleep._

That was right, thought Harry to the shielding wall of his bed hangings. He had Voldemort.

Harry did sleep eventually, but not well. He was woken over and over by the same unquiet dreams: the deep rumble of a motorcycle roaring through a clear night sky, the terrified tremble of a man's pale hand, a green flash of light. Through it all was a woman's voice screaming "Harry! Not Harry!"

He woke when somebody pulled apart the hangings on his bed, flooding his sleepy haven with light from the enchanted windows of their subterranean dorm.

"Are you sick _again_?" Draco demanded.

Harry blinked and began the morning fumble for his glasses. "What?"

Draco heaved a long-suffering sigh and picked the glasses out easily. He held them up to his own eyes. "You don't see very well, do you?" he said then, pulling them away and blinking hard.

"That's pretty much what the glasses are for, yes," agreed Harry, accepting them from the other boy's fingers and sliding them onto his nose. A pale myopic blur turned into Draco's face.

Harry glanced at the window. Outside looked like noon, not morning. "What time is it?" he demanded, mentally reviewing his class timetable and scrambling in the sheets. As long as he wasn't late for Potions, he could beg, talk or lie his way out of pretty much anything.

"Saturday," said Draco, a little bit drily.

"Oh," said Harry. He put his tie back down and flopped back into the sheets. They were so much nicer than the cot in his closet at the Dursleys. He wanted to roll in them and bury his face in his pillows, but Draco would probably think that was weird.

"You missed breakfast, though," said Draco, perching at the foot of Harry's bed.

"Yeah?" said Harry, waiting for the relevance of this comment to become apparent. "So?"

"And so_ the post_, Potter," he rolled his eyes and produced a letter, which he waved at Harry.

Harry was not expecting any post, and he just looked at it for a moment. "Oh," he said.

"Well?" said Draco impatiently.

Harry took the letter, which was inked on soft lambskin vellum and monogrammed with a curling and stylised NML.

"Dear Mr Potter," the letter began in a sharp but elegant script in even, black ink. "Until I received Draco's letter, I was wholly ignorant of the connection revealed by his diligent review of our family history."

Harry blinked, and then allowed his eyes to fall where the letter had been signed "Yours &c., Narcissa Malfoy."

"Oh," he said again, sitting up properly. He ignored Draco's smug expression. The letter was very formal and a bit stiff, but Harry's eyes picked out the most meaningful phrases: 'grievously remiss in my attentions to you, an embarrassment I wish to rectify with all due haste,' seemed to be laying it on a bit thick, but 'great pleasure to extend to you an invitation' and 'we will expect you at Malfoy Manor on the evening of the 20th' leapt off the page at him.

_That gives us ten days_, Voldmort said contemplatively. _That should be enough time._

Harry was just a little bit too happy to bother questioning this cryptic comment. Instead he smiled. "That's brilliant," he said to Draco. "I'm coming to stay with you for Christmas."

"Well, obviously," said Draco. "_Now_ will you tell me why you're not staying at Hogwarts for the rest of the time?"

Harry frowned, thinking it through. He could tell Draco that if he remained within Dumbledore's influence he'd be prevented from visiting Malfoy Manor for his own safety, but he wasn't sure that he wanted to bring up Mr Malfoy's criminal record again.

"Believe me, I tried - but the muggles want me home," he lied.

"I thought you didn't get on," Draco said suspiciously.

"We don't. But nothing brings them together like hating me," Harry said, which was true enough that his bitterness was real. Then he sighed. "If I don't do what they want, they - well, they're not my real family. They've been threatening for years to pack me off to the orphanage."

The word 'orphanage' produced an image of that towering bleak building in Voldemort's memory. Harry felt the voice respond to that image, but it wasn't a verbal response - perhaps not even an intentional response - and it was none of Harry's business to pry.

"Nobody is going to send Harry bloody Potter to live in an orphanage," said Draco incredulously. "That's ridiculous."

Harry privately thought they probably wouldn't, either - if only because of Dumbledore's warding. But he hadn't known that for the past decade, and it was a real and familiar fear. "You mean the same way nobody would leave Harry bloody Potter to live with muggles?"

Draco looked helplessly at him.

After a long pause he said: "Well, if you're staying from the twentieth that's only six days with them, isn't it?"

Harry nodded cheerfully, banishing tired thoughts and holding Narcissa's letter tight in his hand. "I'd better go write a reply," he told Draco, grinning as he crawled out of bed.

After all, he'd spent eleven years with the Dursleys. What was six more days?

* * *

**ONCE AGAIN I have been bowled over by the response to this story.** Thank you very kindly for your reviews, comments and the like. You are all very much appreciated.

**On an answering-questions sort of note note,** I have been asked several times if this story is slash, or if the story is going to involve an eventual romantic partnership of some kind. I have a very long and unsurprisingly rambling answer to this query:

While I am totally open to the idea of Harry/Somebody/Lord Voldemort's Really Unhelpful Commentary, I am sufficiently old enough now that I feel like an enormous creeper contemplating an eleven year old Harry having any kind of sexual relationship. I realise that at twelve and thirteen people do actually have sex and/or sexual relationships, but I'm not super cool with writing them myself anymore.

If I do continue this story past first year (which is the current intention, but my brain is a fickle thing, and, you know, first things first: finish first year), I haven't planned for any relationships at all while I've been plotting Hit The Ground Running or its later years. I can't guarantee I won't suddenly get hit with some kind of inspiration mid-sentence and go 'AND THEN HARRY WAS CRACKING ONTO ONE OF THE ESCORT CHICKENS,' but for now, the fic is pretty much gen.

I'm sorry I'm not more decisive and helpful.

**A final note: **Comrades, as you may (or may not!) have noticed, I am Australian. So is my beta. It's possible that I am terrible at British slang. If you notice a very Australian colloquialism (FOR EXAMPLE: "I'd say you've got Buckley's chance of that," said Bellatrix, "since we've been flat out like a lizard drinking for a week!") you should let me know. Although having said that, most of the readers on seem to be from the US and possibly don't know any better than I do.


	13. Chapter 13

**A note that is important enough to put here instead of the bottom of the document where notes go**: Upon reflection, I think there's very little room in this story for a romantic relationship involving Harry. I hereby declare it gen. I actually do like the whole LV/HP idea and do really want to write one at some point but that story is not this story.

* * *

In the final weeks of term they had tests to judge the students' progress, and ostensibly to assist in assigning appropriate homework tasks for the Christmas break. Harry thought they were probably lying, since he was in the top ten students for most of his classes and his homework was basically identical to Goyle's.

Except his Potions homework.

Snape had looked at his class's test scores and evidently decided that students who did too well needed more difficult tasks to occupy their minds.

"I'm not as _good_ in Potions as you are," Harry complained, looking at Draco's homework, which was identical to his own.

"You're really not," Draco agreed slowly. "And you only got an A on the test. Maybe it's averaged out with your partner? I'm pretty sure Zabini got an O."

Harry felt that this was a convenient excuse. Snape would be delighted by setting Harry the most advanced work he could expect a first year to complete, and then marking him down when he inevitably failed at it.

And if questioned, he could always point to Malfoy's work... which would of course be excellent.

Sourly, Harry spent the last week of term trying to make sure that he had nearly completed his Christmas homework before he had to leave to return to the Dursleys. He didn't expect to get a lot of it done in his cupboard, and he wasn't at all sure how much time he'd have to himself at Malfoy Manor.

The twelve uses of dragon's blood weren't listed in _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_, or in _Magical Drafts and Potions_, so he had to go through the library shelves until he found a book that would tell him about them.

"Oven cleaner," he said, eyeing the book.

_And spot remover_, Voldemort pointed out rather lazily from the back of Harry's mind. _Aren't you glad you came to school?_

Harry sighed, but didn't answer, busy copying out the many varied and surprisingly mundane ways in which the blood could be used.

Homework for Transfigurations was largely focused on the theory behind Switching Spells, which was something they'd be practising in class when they returned from break. From there, it was back to Potions, on to two feet of parchment on the theory of forgetfulness potions, and why the sedative effect of valerian was required for maximum efficacy in the potion.

He took a bunch of notes for Charms about the casting and appropriate strength of the Softening Charm - something which Voldemort rather snidely pointed out would be useful for future flying endeavours. Harry thought he was just bitter. Then he took copious notes about mistletoe berries, and how you had to be really careful when adding them to antidotes because they were just as toxic as the rest of the plant if taken in large doses. There would be another three feet due to Snape on the day school returned.

_This is ridiculous,_ he commented to Voldemort sometime in the afternoon of the third day, having finished most of his Charms, Herbology and Transfigurations homework but still only about halfway through his Potions. He had a suspicion there was ink on his face, and he knew his hair probably looked like he'd been in a hurricane because he kept running his hands through it.

But he had to admit that if he somehow actually got through all of Snape's homework, he'd be extremely well-prepared for exams.

_You should take a break from school work_, said Voldemort after a moment. _You'll need to learn about wards._

_Wards_? From what he'd gathered, Harry thought the wards on the Dursleys' house were very much a unique phenomenon, much like his own curse scar.

_We need to investigate the wards on the muggles' house. If there is some way in which they can be replicated, we need to do it as soon as possible. If we can replicate it, there is absolutely no value in spending any time with them._

_Do you think that's possible?_ Harry wondered, shoving his Potions homework away in his bag.

_We'll find out_, said Voldemort grimly.

Thus began Harry's crash-course on warding magic, which took the place of actual breaks between bouts of school homework and the classes he was still attending. They began just after afternoon that day. Harry dug through his books to pull out a new roll of parchment, and began to take careful notes. If Voldemort said something, he usually expected it to be remembered.

_There are an enormous number of systems of magical warding_, Voldemort explained to Harry._ In most cases it's considered a completely reasonable thing to want to study, so you needn't worry about hiding your sudden interest, except in certain specifics._

Harry nodded seriously.

_Methodologies vary wildly, but in the United Kingdom usually students are first taught to design a basic ward using mathematics._

Harry frowned. Maths had never been his best subject at school. He'd been better than Dudley - because Dudley was terrible at it and lazy to boot - but only until they took home their first report cards, and then he'd stopped trying.

Deep in his head, Voldemort made an annoyed noise. _Muggles_, he said in disgust._ There's nothing wrong with your brain. I'm certain you'll be no worse than average at this, once you learn how. The theory and design is actually the most difficult part - the actual magical component is blessedly simple - and you can learn any theory with enough application._

_Anyway_, he went on, _a basic ward has three components: the array or design, the anchor, and something to power it. A basic ward is mathematical: a combination of astronomy and arithmancy that you use to determine the array. The array is a design which covers the warded ara, formed of precise repeated patterns representing the things to be included or excluded by the wards. Depending on what the wards are intended to do, this could be more or less complicated._

_Okay_, said Harry back. The images coming across from Voldemort's voice helped him understand the concepts put forward. What Voldemort was calling an 'array' could be something as simple as a circle drawn around an area, or as complicated as a precisely mapped symmetrical design invoking the poles and accounting for the orbit of several celestial bodies.

He really hoped nobody was going to ask him to do one of those.

_Then, the anchor_, said Voldemort, ignoring Harry's uncertainty. _If I were warding this book, I would use the book as the anchor. That would mean that the ward would be inscribed on the book itself and would move where the book moved, rather than being anchored to, for example, the shelf it's sitting on. The anchor is the object being warded - except in some cases. When you're warding a house, you're usually warding the land itself. Only in very specific circumstances might you ward the house itself._

_And that's what happened with me?_ Harry wondered._ The land the Dursleys' house is on is warded?_

Voldemort made an uncertain noise._ I doubt it,_ he admitted._ I'm still not sure of the nature of the wards on you. When we return, we can investigate what's going on and find out._

_All right,_ Harry nodded. _The last thing was power, wasn't it?_

The voice made an agreeing noise. _For most spells the power comes from you, basically_._ There are a number of tremendously complicated theories about where a witch or wizard's power actually comes from, but for now assume that most of the spells you cast use whatever power you can access through your mind and body alone._

_In some cases you might still use your own power to ward something. That would be a very temporary warding, because it would eventually exhaust you. Nobody ever wants a house, or even a trunk or a book, to be warded permanently with his own power, obviously. If your house was big enough you'd probably kill yourself trying._

_What do you use instead, then?_ Harry asked, scrawling 'personal power not used for permanent warding' on his parchment.

_Something with its own power, usually. Ash made from burning certain trees, some specific potions, rainwater that's never touched the ground, some metals laid into the object, or the blood of certain magical beasts..._ He paused._ There are older methods, which are out of fashion. Obviously there's almost nothing as powerful as the blood of a fresh human sacrifice._

_I think people might frown on that_, Harry pointed out.

_They do now,_ Voldemort agreed. _Other methods used saliva, menstrual blood, semen -_

_Euwww_, Harry recoiled

Voldemort offered the mental equivalent of a shrug. _There are some even older. I know that there's one potion which requires mixing your ancestors' ground up bones with water that you caught between the sky and the earth and painting the array on with that._

Harry wasn't sure if this was more or less disgusting. _How about we just assume rainwater and ash,_ he thought back hopefully.

_Whatever keeps you from having hysterics again, I suppose,_ Voldemort drawled.

_I do not 'have hysterics,'_ Harry protested. Frankly, considering the amount of his time currently dedicated to thinking about terrible magics, murderers out for his blood and slavering monstrous beasts, Harry thought he was doing rather well.

Voldemort refused to comment on that. _Whatever the ward protecting you through these Muggles, boy,_ he said instead,_ I sincerely doubt it's made of rainwater or ash._

Depressingly, Harry thought he was probably right.

As the light was beginning to dim through the windows, somebody sat down at Harry's table. He looked up, startled by the suddenness of it. "Oh," he said, blinking. "Granger."

Hermione Granger frequently coexisted in the library with him, especially around the times when tests or assignments were due. They didn't usually find much reason to talk to each other.

"Potter," she said. It took her a moment, but she found a polite smile for him. "Do you mind if I borrow that book on dragon's blood?"

"I'm done with it," he said, pulling it out of the pile on the desk and passing it to her.

"Fair enough," she said. She took the book, but her eyes were lingering on the charts strewn about. "That doesn't look like our astronomy homework. Are you doing an extra-credit project?

"What?" Harry looked back up, distracted. "Oh," he looked around. "No, well. No, just interest."

"You're studying for interest's sake?" Hermione asked. She settled into her perch on the edge of her seat. "Out of curiosity, why were you sorted into Slytherin? Seems to me like you would have done better in Ravenclaw."

"The same reason anybody else was sorted into Slytherin," said Harry flatly.

Hermione's facial expression suggested that she had a few very uncharitable ideas about what those reasons might be. "Cunning and ambition, I suppose," she said. He could almost see her straining under the effort to be that diplomatic.

Harry exhaled explosively. "What is this about, Granger?"

A frustrated expression crossed her face.

Harry scratched the back of his neck. "Granger, you're not going to get anywhere trying to be friendly - we're not friends. If you want something, tell me what it is and we'll talk about it."

She straightened her spine. She was _blushing_, of all things.

He had the sudden horrible thought that perhaps she was going to confess that she liked him. He panicked. His brain almost shorted out.

Voldemort started to laugh.

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

Harry's stomach clenched. Voldemort laughed harder.

"I want to look at your Potions homework," Hermione said, finally, glaring defiantly at him.

Relief very nearly made him hurl it at her, but he held onto the parchment protectively. "Why?" he asked suspiciously. "Your grades must be at _least_ as good as mine. You're practically the top of our year."

It was true. Harry was excellent at the theory for most of his classes, but he was only average in Herbology and Potions because both required muscle memory that he couldn't borrow from Voldemort, and he was almost certain that Hermione's frankly neurotic application to her studies - coupled with what was doubtless an eidetic memory - meant that she was doing better than him in all of their subjects except Transfiguration and Charms.

Even Defence, Harry thought sourly, because the headache potions made him just a little too fuzzy to concentrate properly.

"Because," Hermione said stiffly, "I think Sn- Professor Snape isn't grading the Gryffindors fairly. I wanted to see..."

"You need proof that Professor Snape favours Slytherins," Harry said slowly. He shook his head. "What, was being in class with him not enough?"

Hermione looked surprised that he'd admitted it. "Well, it's not very _fair_ is it?"

_It's not __**fair**__,_ whined Voldemort in a terrible mimicry of Hermione's voice._ Merlin, it's not fair how often I have to listen to this sad little mudblood __**talk**__._

"-and you know our OWL grades will determine whether or not we can take NEWTs-"

_I think a Potions NEWT has been factored into her five year plan_, Harry suggested gently.

_Which means what, exactly, to us?_ Voldemort said.

_Well, it won't hurt anything_, Harry sent back. _It's not like she's liable to copy my work and give Snape an excuse to give me a detention. She'd give herself a heart attack trying._

"- and Professor Snape only accepts people with a O average into his NEWT cla-"

Harry held up his hands. "I understand," he said. "Please stop talking."

She shut her mouth with a click, looking affronted.

Harry dug into his bag, searching out the parts of their Christmas homework that he'd finished. "You'd have been better off asking Draco about this, anyway," he pointed out. "He's doing a lot better in Potions than I am."

Hermione gave him a strange look. "Potter, I don't know if you've noticed at all, but Malfoy is a giant, enormous, really terrible prat. I _would_ ask him just to prove my point, but he doesn't talk to anybody whose magical bloodline doesn't predate Hadrian's Wall."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Harry, rolling his eyes. "I'm a half-blood, and he talks to me, doesn't he?"

Hermione gave him a long look, as though he might be joking, before she returned to her perusal of his essay. "You're _Harry Potter_," she said, with her eyes on the parchment. "Everybody knows the Malfoy family's as dark as they come, no matter how good their PR is. He'd be an idiot to pick a fight with you. Oh," she added lightly, "you've started on the mistletoe. I was wondering who'd got those books."

Harry decided to disregard everything she'd just said about Malfoy. "Yeah, it's actually a little bit interesting," he admitted.

She skimmed through his notes, nodding. "And you got an A on the test?" she said, although it was obvious she already knew. She probably had everybody's scores memorised.

"Yes," he agreed. Not for the first time, Harry wondered about her. The amount of effort she put herself through just so she could be the most insufferable know-it-all was really staggering, and seemed like it would be terribly exhausting.

"Are you done?" he asked, holding out his hand.

"I think he might have been harder on you than he was on me," she said, eyeing his work unhappily as she passed it back over.

Harry was not surprised in the slightest by this admission. "Probably," he agreed, and returned to his work.

Hermione stayed where she was. He could feel her watching him.

He read for a few moments more and then lifted his head. "I can't help but notice you haven't left yet."

Hermione looked a bit embarrassed. She shifted uncomfortably for a few moments. Then, finally, she said: "Did you really get detention a couple of weeks back for doing some kind of really dark magic?"

"Er," said Harry. "What?"

"It's not just me. Everybody's saying it," Hermione went on quickly. "At Hallowe'en -"

"Samhain." Harry eyed her. "It was perfectly legal," he said.

"Parvati said you and Malfoy were trying to sacrifice a cat."

Harry felt his eyebrows rise. "I sacrificed a couple of apples."

Hermione's expression became confused. "Oh," she said. "But -"

"Look, dark magic is... some of it's really foul and awful, absolutely. I would know," he gestured with the feather of his quill to his forehead. She glanced up to the scar and then quickly away, "But sometimes I think it's just a way of discrediting magic some people don't like."

Hermione looked pained. "But Professor Quirrell -"

"Do you really think Professor Quirrell is an authority on anything at all?" Harry wondered.

"Well," said Hermione. She opened her mouth, but she didn't seem to have anything else to add. "Well," she said weakly. Then, all in a rush, "He's a really terrible teacher."

"Right," said Harry, who agreed wholeheartedly. "He's a terrible teacher."

She frowned. "But _dark magic_ -"

"Look," said Harry, "I think I'd get in more trouble for talking about the ritual I was doing, honestly, so I'm not going to defend it. You can look it up, if you really want to know."

Hermione gave him a frustrated look.

"Are we done here?" Harry wondered.

"Fine," she said with a huff, and stood up. It took her a few long seconds to gather her books, but when she did she stalked away unhappily.

_Finally_, muttered Voldemort.

On the fourth day, Draco and Pansy staged an intervention around lunch time and dragged him down to the Great Hall.

"There is only one day left of school," said Pansy, wrapping her arms around his. "You can't spend all your time cooped up in the library!"

Harry protested, but in the end Crabbe was persuaded to pack his things for him while Pansy clung to his arm and held him in place. Draco oversaw the whole operation with the imperious air of a benevolent dictator.

"Merlin," he said, eyeing Harry's homework as it disappeared into his book bag, "you must be a third of the way through your homework already."

"So?" said Harry defensively.

"So what have you got to do on the holidays that's so exciting you have to get it all done now?" Pansy asked curiously, leading him through the library and out the double doors under Madame Pince's unfriendly gaze.

A small crowd of escort chooks were squabbling half-heartedly outside the library, and nearly tripped them as they went.

Harry frowned. "I..." he stopped.

"Thought it was going to be a quiet one, Potter?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Are you doing something so terribly exciting you'd never have time to get all that homework done?"

Draco looked less committed to this theory, probably because he knew that Harry lived with muggles and would hardly believe that very much excitement could be going on over the holiday.

Harry shook his head. He wasn't sure what to tell them, and all Voldemort gave him was the mental equivalent of a shrug.

"Is it a _secret_?" Pansy prodded.

Harry shook his head harder, because the only way to keep a secret permanently in Slytherin house was if nobody else knew it existed. If anybody thought there was a secret, they'd never leave him be.

"He's not doing anything exciting," Draco said, taking the decision out of Harry's hands. "He lives with a bunch of muggles, and then he's coming to stay with us for the second week."

"With muggles?" Pansy said blankly.

Draco remained silent, so Harry nodded. "My parents are dead, remember?"

"Well, obviously," Pansy rolled her eyes - and then with typical sensitivity she added, "Everybody knows your parents are dead, Potter. I can't imagine there was no proper family who wanted you, though, surely?"

Harry blinked. "I don't..."

_Don't be stupid_, Voldemort sighed. _It wouldn't have mattered - Dumbledore is the head of the Wizengamot, and, reading through the lines, I'd say he performed the warding that tied your mother's sacrifice to the muggles. He'd have orchestrated it for your protection_. He said the word 'protection' as though it tasted rancid.

Oh. Of course. Harry shook his head. "I don't know what happened, I was just a baby," he said. "Maybe it was too political," he suggested.

Pansy raised an eyebrow, but nodded slowly. "So," she said, returning to the point, "you're so excited to be going back to the muggles that you have to get all of your homework out of the way right now to maximise your free time?" she asked, but now her voice was teasing.

Harry shifted uncomfortably. "They don't really like magic. They _really_ don't like magic. Even talking about magic is... well, they don't like it." Something unhappy and bitter welled up in him, and he couldn't help adding, "Besides, I'll probably spend the whole time doing chores anyway."

_They don't need to know the details_, Voldemort cautioned.

Harry swallowed and nodded. It was unfortunate that he had to let them know he lived with the muggles, but he certainly didn't need the other Slytherins to know he allowed them to push him around, too.

_Exactly_, said Voldemort.

Pansy's brow furrowed. "Well, I suppose they don't have a house elf," she said contemplatively. "But why wouldn't they like magic? If I didn't have magic, I'd want it," she pointed out.

"They're scared of it," Harry said shortly.

"They should be," rumbled Crabbe from behind them.

Harry started. He'd nearly forgotten about the other boy. "Yeah, probably," he said lightly, and held out his hand. "Can I have my bag back?"

They went down to lunch. Pansy promptly put the whole business out of mind and Crabbe was distracted by food and not really what you might call a deep thinker anyway, but Draco was a more tenacious and a lot harder to distract, and he watched Harry speculatively throughout the meal.

"What?" Harry said finally, but Draco pretended he didn't know what Harry was talking about.

Despite Dumbledore's promise that he'd be properly supervised upon his return to the muggles, Harry managed to remain largely incurious about his escort right up until he disembarked in London on the fourteenth.

For some reason, he'd assumed it would be Snape. It seemed to make sense that his head of house would be somehow pressed into undertaking that responsibility. He was wrong.

"All righ' there, Harry?" Rubeus Hagrid asked, hauling his trunk down to the platform for him.

"Hello," said Harry, surprised and showing it. It was a bit of a shock to expect the supercilious, cold-eyed Potions Master and instead get Hagrid beaming down at him from an enormous height.

"I can get it," he said belatedly, watching Hagrid load the chest onto a trolley with ease.

"'Sall right," Hagrid said cheerfully. "Best I do it anyway."

_You may as well let him do what he's good at. Merlin knows he's only good for menial labour anyway._

Harry got to ignore Voldemort's unhelpful voice because Draco stepped down after him, glancing about. He eyed Hagrid, but didn't say anything, and together the three went through to platform nine at Kings Cross.

Harry wouldn't have thought Draco - or whichever parent was coming to collect him - would be caught dead in muggle London. His expression must have given him away, because Draco shook his head. "My mother's got business at the Ministry," he explained, "father's coming directly here, so it's on the muggle side."

Harry wasn't sure how the Ministry worked, exactly, but he nodded all the same. With Hagrid looming awkwardly - and drawing the eyes of many of the muggles - they waited for a few long, silent moments. Harry saw Hermione Granger slip through to platform nine, meet up with a set of very ordinary looking professionals, and disappear into the muggle crowd. She fit in, mundane and boring, and Harry fought off the urge to sneer at her back. It was hardly her fault.

_Lots of things aren't anybody's fault, but they're still offensive,_ Voldemort pointed out.

A few of their classmates also came through to the muggle side for various reasons: Harry saw Pansy wave brightly, stepping along behind a tall, dark-haired woman, and the whole Weasley clan seemed to have shown up just to collect one of the twins and the fifth year prefect - Harry didn't see Ronald Weasley anywhere. However, most of the Hogwarts students were collected from Platform 9 3/4.

"I'm sure they won't be long," Hagrid was saying, which may have been comforting if Harry had been at all invested in seeing any of the Dursleys ever again. He wasn't: he just felt edgy and restless and a little bit nervous - and resentful as hell.

He busied himself watching Draco, who was glancing around the station as though he might catch some terrible muggle disease just standing there.

The blond boy seemed to sense his gaze, because he turned abruptly to Harry. "I'll write," he said, eyes flicking up to Hagrid and back down to Harry's face.

"I don't know if I'll be able -" Harry stopped, because he could suddenly see Uncle Vernon approaching over Draco's shoulder. The man was distant, an indistinct blob across the other side of the broad station platform. He fought the urge to duck and hide.

Draco turned and glanced over to see what Harry was looking at so intently. "Merlin's-" he looked up at Hagrid, who was watching him with dark eyes beneath those bushy brows, "-hat," he finished unconvincingly. "Is that -?"

"My uncle," Harry said, sounding just as enthused as he felt. "No relation," he added a bit too quickly, watching Vernon's ponderous bulk hampering his progress between the other passengers at the busy station.

"This is why we shouldn't marry muggleborns," Draco muttered, watching his progress.

"You can't help your family," said Harry, feeling a little stung. He felt, more than saw, the way Hagrid shifted uncomfortably behind him. It was like a mountain shouldering up from the earth into the sky, and probably not as subtle as the Gamekeeper thought.

"No," Draco agreed, but his eyes didn't leave Vernon. "And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with you, Potter - except for all that studying, obviously -"

"Obviously," drawled Harry.

"But you can help your children's family, can't you? And you probably should."

Watching Vernon approach, red-faced and glowering about himself, Harry didn't have the heart to argue. It wasn't a point easily refuted.

_Probably because he's right,_ said Voldemort.

_Yes_, said Harry, feeling unsettled. _I think he might be._

Satisfied, Voldemort settled back into silence.

"Boy," growled Vernon when he was in growling distance. "What are you dawdling for? Do you think I'm going to carry all that -" he waved at Harry's trunk, completely at a loss as to how to describe the filthy magics he evidently thought were contained therein, " - _paraphernalia_, for you?"

"No, Uncle Vernon," said Harry, falling quickly back into the habit of years: yes or no, quickly, and by name. He moved quickly to wheel his own trunk.

Draco was looking at Uncle Vernon with a peculiar expression, as though he'd not only never seen a muggle before, but as if he'd never seen anything quite so horrid. All the breeding in the world had not prepared him for this - quite on purpose, Harry thought a bit cynically.

Draco said, rather helplessly, "And _this_ is your-"

The look Vernon turned on Draco was flat-eyed and very bleak, and the boy stopped mid-sentence, taken aback by its vehemence.

"I'll have none of this nonsense from any freak friends you've made while you're under my roof, boy," Vernon said, addressing Harry.

Harry felt Draco stiffen. A glance showed him that the other boy's face had gone white and bloodless the way it did when he was very angry.

"Hey now," said Hagrid, who was beginning to look at little bit alarmed.

"Draco," interrupted the cool and polished voice Harry remembered from that first day on the platform. Harry very nearly cringed, but he gamely turned to check, just in case it somehow _wasn't_ Mr Malfoy.

It was. He looked tall and groomed and sleek as ever, from his dragon-hide boots to the silver thread glinting on the cuffs of his robes. He had not bothered to change into muggle clothing - he was in full robes and had his long hair tied back with a green ribbon, for Merlin's sake - but nobody at the station seemed to notice.

In fact, the only muggle who seemed to notice him at all was Uncle Vernon, and he was staring, mouth twisted. Harry could guess his dilemma: on the one hand, he wanted to find the words to describe his disgust in the presence of an actual adult wizard, one who made no effort to hide or apologise - but on the other hand, Mr Malfoy reeked of old money, which was a thing the Dursleys as a unit respected unquestioningly.

"Come away from there," he said with his pale grey eyes set on Uncle Vernon. "You know better than to associate with this sort of... person." He said 'person' as though the word he was substituting it for was not used in polite company.

"Yes, father," said Draco, straightening his spine. "I had no intention of staying a moment longer than necessary." His voice was clipped and frosty, but he touched Harry's elbow once, gently, before he left, and gave him a significant look.

What it actually signified, Harry wasn't sure. He swallowed.

Mr Malfoy's unfriendly eyes remained fixed on Vernon until Draco was close enough to take his gloved hand. Harry was strongly reminded of a dragon, primitive and watchful and hunched over a clutch of eggs. "Mr Potter," he said gravely, inclining his head.

Then Draco took his hand, and the pair disappeared with an echoing _crack_.

Uncle Vernon flinched, but nobody else even seemed to notice the noise.

Hagrid looked around uncomfortably. "That's the thin edge of the Statute, that is," he muttered darkly. Then he seemed to shake it off. "Right. I've done my bit, then, Harry. Yeh'll be havin' an - er - a very merry Christmas, I reckon," he said, watching Vernon uncertainly.

"I'm sure," said Harry. He disregarded Hagrid then, squared his shoulders, and followed Vernon out through the station.

He _would_ have a happy Christmas, he though furiously - by virtue of the simple fact that it wouldn't be had with the Dursleys.

* * *

Good evening comrades! I know sometimes reviewing feels like a pointless exercise. It's not! I read them all. And it's very exciting to read what you have to say (unless, apparently, it's homophobic bullshit). Or, well, write. _Type_, actually, I suppose. So thank you to the people who have left me reviews. :3

Only **Comrade Lord Toewart** to respond to this chapter: He will meet Dobby very soon. (HOPEFULLY next chapter, but I have this thing where about 40% of what I plan to put into a chapter actually gets put in each chapter and then I sit around going 'WHY CAN'T I WRITE A FASTER PACED STORY?' but that's what goes on, I'm afraid.)

**Regarding LV/HP**: It is near the top of a really long list of HP stories that I want to write which are not this story. I am forever expanding that list at a much faster pace than I write. I will get there eventually.

**I can't believe I'm making this edit: **Comrades, I am distressed. I am distressed because all along, a few of the comments about this story have been creeping toward homophobic, and homophobia is a distressing thing. Let me be clear for you: _there will be no sexual relationship as a major feature of this story_.

I don't mind if you're not into that. I'm not into a lot of things. You don't have to be same-sex attracted, or even into the idea of two guys or two girls or several people of _whatever fucking gender they want to be_ getting it on. But I trust authors to tag those things in their summaries when that becomes relevant. If you're so frightened of coming across a story containing a gay character that you feel you need to make absolutely sure by messaging me about it (privately or otherwise), I think we'd both feel better if you hit the little X in the top right hand corner. There's six hundred and fifty thousand other Harry Potter fanfics on this website alone, so you can afford to go read something else.

**Because I feel shame like a twisted, physical thing when I think I might be pandering to the interests of some shriveled, bitter, queerphobic assbutt, and frankly you're no comrade of mine.**

I'm sorry if any readers felt that this edit was out of line because it was in response to issues really not pertaining to this story. You're quite correct. You're absolutely on the money. Fair dinkum, comrades. This isn't a pride parade, it's a fanfic, and_ I shouldn't have to write this shit here._


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes important enough to go at the top and not at the bottom where they belong: **Trigger warning for child abuse, slightly worse than canon, because I don't want to make anybody sad or panicky. :(

* * *

Almost as soon as Harry was back in Surrey, he found himself whisked back into the Dursleys' home under the dubious cover of dusk. Uncle Vernon locked his school trunk away in the garage and confiscated his magic wand before they even got through the door.

"You can start on dinner, boy. It should be ready by six," he said, and then lumbered away to do something important in the upstairs study - a room they'd converted from Dudley's second bedroom at some point between September and Christmas.

"Yes, Uncle Vernon," Harry mumbled. He made his way to the kitchen. It was just as spotless as he remembered, smelling faintly of cleaning product. There were no particular instructions left for dinner, but he found with a sinking heart that there was a whole chicken defrosted in the fridge and a tub of potatoes waiting to be washed by the sink.

He glanced at the clock.

He was never going to make it by six. He couldn't help that, though, so he busied himself with garlic and lemon and rosemary. It was a very large chicken - certainly larger than the ones protecting Hogwarts - but he knew from experience that there was almost no chance he'd get to eat any of it.

_Forget about that,_ Voldemort said impatiently. _We need to examine the wards._

Harry put the roast on and left it to do its thing, heading into the garden on Voldemort's instructions. "They are going to kill me if they catch me setting fire to something in their house," he pointed out, picking large leaves of grey-green sage from the plant in the garden.

_Just do it_, Voldemort insisted.

"How?" he said, looking at the leaves in his hand. "I don't have my wand."

_You might try the stove_, the voice suggested scathingly.

"Oh," said Harry, and went back inside. He tied the leaves off at one end, set the end on fire and let it smoke in a ceramic bowl - Voldemort forbade him to use plastic tupperware, even though it was less likely to be missed or noticed.

The smell was powerful, so he quickly took the herbs outside where they wouldn't make the whole house smell.

_Sit_, said Voldemot, sounding an awful lot like Professor Snape in a classroom snit.

Harry sat.

_Close your eyes - completely, Potter, I didn't say 'close your eyes except if you think the muggle might see you through a window,'_ he snapped. _Good_, he went on when Harry guiltily complied, _now breathe._

He inhaled, smelling smoke and burning herbs.

_Good_. T_hink about the breath. In_, he paused for a long moment. _Out. Good. What can you feel in your body?_

Harry frowned. He could feel the grass he was sitting on. It was dry, but December was cold, and he could feel the chill of it soaking through the ragged hand-me-downs he was wearing.

He could feel the same coldness in the night air, the feel of his clothing on his skin, the fall of hair over his face - over the scar. He could feel the press of his glasses behind his ears, on his nose.

He went on noticing these things for some time, listening to his own slowing breathing, and Voldemort didn't tell him to stop.

_Good_, Voldemort's voice was softer when he spoke again. _Can you feel your heart beat?_

_Yes_, Harry thought vaguely. Now that Voldemort drew his attention to it, he could hardly understand how he usually managed to ignore it. It was slow, but steady and heavy: _thump-thump, thump-thump._

_Good_, said Voldemort's voice, a distant thing to the thump of his heart.

He could feel the beat in his chest, spreading out through his limbs. His fingertips ached with every thunderous pulse.

It drowned out everything else, like some enormous drum. His body shook in time to its beat.

_Good_, Voldemort's voice was barely a whisper in his mind now, hissing insidiously under the powerful thump of Harry's heart. _Now the magic. What can you feel? Can you feel me?_

Harry was too overwhelmed by the beat to bother replying that he could _always_ feel Voldemort because he never shut up. He thought about the words for a second longer, and realised he actually could feel Voldemort: he could feel his own scar.

It felt foul and diseased, heavy with somebody else's magic, and Harry got a sharp, unhappy mental image: red eyes, flat face, graveyard skin. Green light. He exhaled, slow and deep, and the heart beat washed it away.

_Good enough_, said Voldemort, apparently unconcerned by that flash of memory, and then, _open your eyes._

Harry did. The house didn't look any different. A hot rush of disappointment filled his belly.

Voldemort didn't say anything for a long second. Then he said: _Perhaps you're not very good at it. Not everybody is_, he added, sounding annoyed. _Although of course I am._

_Of course_, thought Harry cynically.

_Try not looking at it directly,_ Voldemort suggested. _Magic is like that, sometimes._

Like what exactly, Harry wasn't sure. He followed instructions, however, and turned so the house was in his peripheral vision only. His heart gave a heavy, distracting thump.

From the corner of his eye, Harry could see threads of glowing colour crawling up the house, locked together and awkwardly combined as though the building had been wrapped by a four year old playing a very complicated game of cat's cradle.

_Your peripheral vision is awful_, complained Voldemort. _And largely obscured by the frame of your glasses._

_I can't help that_, Harry pointed out.

_I know. Get up. Walk around the property. Try not to hurt yourself thinking so hard,_ he added. Harry caught the idea that Voldemort didn't expect him to be competent enough to actually interpret the patterns he was seeing.

_Of course not,_ the voice agreed. _But the least you could do is try to __**see**__ them with some competence. Move,_ he added impatiently, with the stinging mental equivalent of a slap.

Harry got to his feet and moved slowly, as though this strange corner-of-the-eye vision was something precarious and easily damaged. He edged around the house, walking slowly over the icy ground up the side into the front garden, around the car where it was parked in the driveway and past the front door. He hoped nobody could see him - or that if they did they couldn't see anything they'd mention to the muggles.

_You can let it go now_, Voldemort said magnanimously once he'd returned to the back yard, and Harry did, suddenly realising that he had a burgeoning headache. It seemed like his head ached most of the time, these days. He rubbed his scar, and then went inside to clean up and check on the chicken.

It still wasn't going to be done by six. He peered at it through the little window into the oven, wondering if he could change the heat without ruining it.

_Do you know anything about cooking chicken?_ He wasn't sure if this was one of the Dark Lord's skills, but he rather doubted it. Still, Voldemort could brew potions; maybe he could cook, too.

_No,_ said Voldemort flatly. Harry received a vague memory, often repeated, of being too busy to eat, of feeling like food was a chore that had to happen so the dark magic could be gotten on with, a vague resentment of the intrusion... He got the impression that the voice had never paid a lot of attention to what he was eating.

Harry sighed. He was fairly sure that turning the heat up would just ruin it. Like how some potions had to be made by using specific heat over a long time, or else the bits wouldn't change in the right way to make it work.

_The word you're looking for is 'denaturing,'_ Voldemort said. _Your vocabulary is really appalling._

Harry sighed again. He knew there would be no way to fix dinner by six o'clock, but he still felt a vague apprehension about it. Uncle Vernon would be angry. _What about the wards?_

_They're ...complicated,_ said Voldemort, sounding not entirely certain. _The pattern of them indicates that they're powered by a person._

He showed Harry the convergence of those bright lines around the house. Harry didn't understand at all how the criss-crosses and sharp angles somehow indicated anything in particular, but he just nodded.

_So either your aunt or your cousin._

_Dudley?_ Harry wondered, blinking at the chicken in the oven.

_He is... technically... your blood,_ said Voldemort, sounding a little pained by the admission.

Harry snorted softly. _I'd rather not have to think about that,_ he said honestly.

It wasn't often that Harry and Voldemort were in total agreement. Their feelings and thoughts overlapped, but rough edges and ugly angles tended to show where they didn't. On this matter, however, they were almost one mind. Harry had a brief and awkward memory from that other consciousness: the disgust of looking, cool-eyed and unhappy, at his own handsome features, years older, in a muggle face.

The voice shied away from that thought.

Harry didn't stop him.

_I can appreciate that,_ said the voice after a moment, flat and indifferent.

They were both silent for a moment, and then Voldemort went on:_ I don't think either of us will be able to replicate wards of this complexity without more work than is due_, he admitted, much to Harry's displeasure.

_I don't want to stay here,_ he said back.

_I didn't say you'd have to stay here. We might be able to alter them, a little bit. It's a very secure warding, so we might be able to... snip a little bit off and re-anchor it._

Harry frowned. _That sounds ...really complicated._

_It is, and it would take quite a lot in terms of sheer magical power. But it's all moot until we can see how it's using either your aunt or cousin as a power source._

By 'we,' Harry very much hoped Voldemort meant 'I,' because as they'd only recently discussed, Harry was bollocks at it.

It was all moot anyway, because dinner was only half-done by six o'clock when Petunia returned from picking Dudley up at Smeltings. Dudley stormed upstairs like a herd of elephants, and Uncle Vernon flew quickly and predictably off the handle.

"What time do you see there, boy?" he asked, holding the back of Harry's skull in his meaty hand to make him look toward the clock.

"Six," said Harry. It had to be admitted. It was five past, even. The clock ticked loudly in the short silence, and the lights reflected brightly off the clean kitchen tiles.

"And what time was dinner meant to be done by?"

"Six," Harry repeated. "But -" he said, wanting to point out that he oughtn't be punished for failing at an impossible task.

"No," said Uncle Vernon in a thunderous growl. "No buts! We feed you, we clothe you, we keep you under our roof - do you think we have to do any of that?"

"No," said Harry. And then, irritably: "But none of that has anything to do with dinner," he pointed out, in what he felt was a very reasonable voice.

Uncle Vernon's face was quietly reddening, though. "You listen to me, boy," he said in a low growl, "you don't give us anything for your keep or your board, and all we ask you to do is a few chores - and here you are!" His voice took on a hint of incredulous anger, "Trying to ruin Dudley's first night back -" he seemed to be getting rather worked up about it, really, "-of all the ungrateful -"

Vernon's face went from red to purple. He didn't seem to be able to find the words to express what he wanted to. "You -"

He took Harry roughly by the arm, yanking him around to turn his gaze from the clock face to Vernon's

Harry's heart started to beat wildly in his chest.

He looked from the man's grip on his arm to his narrowed eyes, and his Uncle seemed to notice his stillness and wariness. Instead of making him let go, it seemed to spur him on: he gave Harry a rough shake, hard enough to make his glasses slide down the bridge of his nose.

"What do you do for us, I want to know," he said in a terrible voice.

Voldemort went very still in his head.

Harry stared at Uncle Vernon, frightened and unblinking.

"Vernon," said Aunt Petunia, looking up from where she was turning the chicken. Her eyes went to the grip Harry's uncle had on his arm. The soft sounds of Uncle Vernon's name echoed, hard and flat, in the utter silence of the kitchen.

Upstairs, Harry could hear Dudley yelling something at his television screen.

Uncle Vernon let go.

Aunt Petunia looked between her husband and her nephew. "Go to your cupboard," she said in a hard, quiet voice.

Harry obeyed. For once, he was more than happy to retreat to that horrible place under the stairs. He wasn't even surprised when he heard Aunt Petunia's footsteps and the sliding lock of the door.

"You shouldn't have stopped me," he heard Uncle Vernon say gruffly from the kitchen. "Boy needs a good kick up the arse more than he needs coddling."

Aunt Petunia's voice was pitched wrong for Harry to hear what she said, but he could hear her higher voice making an acid response.

Harry wrapped his arms around his knees, perched on the edge of his cot in the dark. The room smelled of him, of unclean linens and old sweat. He closed his eyes, listening to the noises outside his cupboard: the house settling as the evening became colder, the blare of Dudley's television and the clatter of dinner dishes.

Not for the first time in his life, Harry sat in the dark and felt terrible and wondered: _Why is this happening to me?_

Harry wasn't sure if Voldemort was actually capable of sympathy, but he could feel him in the back of his skull, heavy with rage and resentment. He didn't comment, but Harry knew what he would have said.

Harry's head pounded with the Dark Lord's anger and his scar stung sharply, but for once he didn't mind that much. It faded slowly as the night wore on.

Harry stretched out on the cot as far as he could - which wasn't that far, all up; he was beginning to outgrow it - and waited.

When the house finally fell silent, Harry tried to unlock his cupboard the way he'd learnt before he'd even heard of Hogwarts, and he heard the tumbler click, but when he went to open the door, he couldn't.

It had to be stuck. He put his shoulder against the door and shoved.

Mostly he bruised his shoulder.

They'd added another lock. He shoved again, and listened to the corresponding rattle. Another lock, something with a chain. Harry hadn't noticed.

Apparently Aunt Petunia had noticed that he'd begun raiding the fridge late August, and taken action to put a stop to it. He swallowed.

_I can't get out_, he said to Voldemort._ I can't get out without my wand unless I get to look at the locks, but I won't get to look at the locks unless they let me out._

The voice in his head sighed.

Harry went back to his cot and buried his face in his hands. He wanted nothing more than to cry.

_Don't you dare,_ said Voldemort in a growl.

For some reason, growling and threats didn't make Harry feel any better. Hot tears made damp patches on his forearm, but he was quiet and tried to be as little annoying to Voldemort as possible.

_I hate it here,_ he said, when his brief storm of weeping was over.

Voldemort, who had been waiting silently and impatiently for all of this abominable crying to be over, started a little. Harry got the impression of unhappiness, and then he agreed, quietly: _I've had better nights, too._

Harry's classmates might have given him a hard time about how little he ate, but eating too little at Hogwarts wasn't at all the same as eating too little at the Dursleys. Harry was forcibly reminded of this fact the following day when, having herded him out brusquely for a bathroom break, Aunt Petunia gave him a chicken wing and a potato, put him to work for four hours in the garden, and then shut him back in the closet until the following morning.

By the sixth day of his Christmas holiday, Harry was tired, hungry and anxious. He'd spent the morning on all fours scrubbing the kitchen floor, followed by a mid-morning break to go dust everything and clean the windows and take down the curtains so Aunt Petunia would be able to wash them at her convenience, and then he'd been put to work cleaning the grout in the shower, which he was convinced was basically impossible. Every task he attended to brought a new criticism from Aunt Petunia, to the point where, by afternoon, he was thinking fondly of Snape's Potions classes.

Finally, minutes before the bridge ladies were to arrive, Aunt Petunia sniffed, handed him an apple, and locked him back in the cupboard.

Harry still hadn't managed to figure out the new locks on his door - locks, plural.

"I have," he said, looking stupidly at the tiny crack of light around the edges of his cupboard door, "no idea how I am going to get to Wiltshire this evening."

Voldemort didn't have a lot to say in response to that.

They sat in silence, two minds in one body, and listened to the sound of Aunt Petunia's bridge group. Mostly they gossipped, but Harry suspected they might have had a game or two of cards, too.

Hours passed. The bridge ladies left. The light outside the cupboard door changed from the grey daylight of midwinter to yellow overheads, and Harry listened blankly to the sounds of Aunt Petunia preparing dinner in the kitchen.

The smell of roasting meat made his stomach cramp up, and Harry began to nibble on his apple, even though he knew he should save some for when he really needed it. He was hungry. His stomach hurt.

_Just eat it,_ sighed Voldemort.

"What will I tell Draco?" Harry asked softly, nibbling at the thin green skin. He knew Draco would be disappointed. Maybe even betrayed. He didn't want Draco to hate him. He swallowed.

_Tell him..._ Voldemort paused, hunting for an excuse.

Harry came up blank, too.

He heard when Dudley came home, heard the sounds of Aunt Petunia offering him a snack to stave off hunger before dinner, listened to him thundering up the stairs like some lumbering giant.

Harry was laying on his cot, waiting for the sound of Uncle Vernon getting home, when something in the darkness went _crack_.

He jerked upright, looking wildly around. He couldn't make light without a wand, but somebody evidently could, because a moment later a bright orb of light floated to the top of the cupboard where it bounced gently against the slanted roof.

There wouldn't have been room in his cupboard for another person, but there was enough space for a house elf.

The elf was just over three foot tall, with huge pointed ears and enormous eyes like shining green lamps in his face. He tried for a bow, but there wasn't really sufficient room. Instead his head made a dull thump when it collided with the edge of the cot, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Er," said Harry.

"Harry Potter!" said the elf. "So long has Dobby wanted to meet you sir!"

"I'm pleased to meet you," said Harry automatically. "Could you please keep your voice down?" He was in the cupboard as a punishment, and if the Dursleys heard him talking to a house elf and came to investigate the noise... he swallowed.

The elf didn't really lower his voice, but he certainly kept going: "Such an honour it is, sir, Harry Potter cannot know..."

"Er," said Harry again. "Okay, look, you're not one of the Hogwarts elves, are you?" he looked him up and down. He hadn't seen many of the house elves at the school, but he was pretty certain they didn't traipse about in filthy pillowcases.

"No, sir, no," he shook his head. "Dobby serves..." he stopped, looking from side to side, almost nervously. "Dobby serves his family," he said finally. "Dobby has been sent to take Harry Potter to Wiltshire, to Malfoy Manor -"

"_Great_," said Harry, a little too loudly, and with enthusiasm. "I have to get my wand, Dobby, do you think you can help me get my wand and my trunk off the muggles before we go? They're in the garage."

Dobby's wide eyes got wider. "Harry Potter must _not_ come to Malfoy Manor!" he said.

There was a silent pause.

Dobby looked as though he was scandalised by what he'd just said. With a wail, he threw himself to his knees and began slamming his head into the floor.

It wasn't very quiet.

"No, no, Dobby," Harry scrambled off the cot and landed mostly on top of the elf, which at least served the purpose of halting his thrashing - although he could still feel the little thing jerking madly against him as he held him down. "Dobby, please, we have to be quiet."

The movements didn't stop. "Dobby must punish himself," wailed the elf, thankfully muffled by Harry's stomach.

"Can't - uh - can't Dobby punish himself _later_?" Harry demanded.

Dobby's thrashing paused. "Later, sir?"

Harry heaved a relieved sigh. "Is there any limitation on punishment or something?"

Dobby's huge, bright eyes turned a haunted look on Harry. "No, Harry Potter," he said, "there is no limitation on punishment."

"Great," Harry said, hopping back onto the cot. "Then you can get back to... whatever that was," he waved at Dobby's bruised head, "later, when you're not in my cupboard. So Draco sent you?" he asked pointedly.

Dobby nodded. "Mistress sent me," he clarified.

Narcissa. Well, that was nice. "But you won't take me back to Malfoy Manor," he clarified.

Dobby swallowed so hard his whole throat bobbed. He was trembling when he said, "No, sir," in a very quiet voice. "Dobby is very bad to disobey his family, Dobby will have to punish himself..." he trailed off, muttering to himself. Something about ears in the stove.

_That is the maddest house elf I have ever seen_, Voldemort said.

Harry hadn't seen many house elves, but he was fairly certain they weren't like this. The ones at Hogwarts were a lot quieter, certainly. He eyed Dobby._ If he didn't want me to go, he just had to stay away,_ he said slowly. _Why is he here? Why not just stay home?_

Voldemort heaved an internal sigh. _The bindings on house elves are extremely complicated. He has to obey his master, or punish himself_, he reminded Harry. _If somebody said 'go find Harry Potter and bring him here,' he would have a lesser punishment by coming here - having 'found Harry Potter' - than he would by ignoring them entirely._

"Why won't you take me?" Harry demanded in a lower voice, mindful of the dinner being prepared not two rooms away.

"Mister Harry Potter must _not_ go to Malfoy Manor," he said urgently. "It is not safe!"

"Do I look safe?" Harry hissed. "I've been locked in a closet by _muggles_," he pointed out. "They've taken my wand off me!"

The elf shook his head, ears flapping madly. "Malfoy Manor is _not safe_," he insisted.

The cupboard door opened. "What are you doing in here?"

Dobby whirled, caught suddenly in the light from the hall.

Harry wasn't entirely certain which of them was more shocked.

Then Aunt Petunia screamed. "GET!" she shrieked, wielding her broom dangerously at the elf. "_Get! Leave! Get out of my house_!"

There was a groan from above, and then the heavy footsteps of Dudley on the stairs above. A trickle of dust fell to the cot.

With wild eyes and a smoky crack, Dobby disappeared.

Aunt Petunia stared, white-faced, at the place where he had been for a moment. Then she gathered herself. "_You_!" she turned on Harry, her face crumpling with distress and indignation. "Summoning that - that _thing_!"

Suddenly Dudley was there, and he was hauling on Harry's arm, dragging him out into the light of the hall. Harry stumbled and fell with the sudden movement, catching himself on his elbows on the carpet. His side smacked painfully into the hallway table, nearly upending it.

"He summoned some - some filthy, abominable creature -" Aunt Petunia was yelling to her son, voice high with a fine edge of hysteria, "something to hurt us, I'm sure of it! He's a devil-child," she shrieked, backing away.

Dudley looked surprised and a little bit alarmed at this outburst from his usually very calm mother, but he turned to Harry, looking down at him half-scared and half-angry.

"I didn't _summon_ anything," he yelled back, too scared and hurt to check his voice, "it came to me because you wouldn't let me go to my friends! They want to make sure I'm all right."

"I can't imagine you with _a_ friend, let alone more than one," Dudley said, sniffing. "I'm sure it's all lies, mum, don't worry about him," he said, patting her awkwardly.

Harry heard Uncle Vernon's key in the lock, and with distant horror, he realised that Aunt Petunia had begun to sob.

That, of course, was when the door opened, revealing Uncle Vernon silhouetted by the street lights outside. "What's going on here?" he demanded, crossing the threshold.

Aunt Petunia turned her tearful face toward him and said nothing - she just sobbed and pointed.

Right at Harry.

_Merlin, what a mess,_ said Voldemort, weary with resignation. Then, immediately after:_ Harry, __**duck**__!_

He didn't.

* * *

A slightly quicker update, because as everybody knows having assignments to do makes you procrasti-fic. This chapter is definitely my most self-indulgent yet, and it's only going to get worse as I go on. Sometimes you have to give in to the urge. XD

The drearily queerphobic element was distressed by my gen fanfic - or, no, actually, by my recommendation that they stop complaining about slashfic when commenting on my gen fanfic. Oh dear, comrades. Oh, _dear_. Oh, well, enough of that.

So! Responses. Two this time, thank you all for your feedback.

**Comrade Anonymous**, who said 'why don't you give an actual circle of friends? or Quidditch?' I appreciate your feedback. Thank you. I will take it on board - my intention is to give him a few more friends, slowly. For various reasons, I don't think he'd be great at making friends fast, and he's only been there for a term. I know, I write slowly. Or, rather, I write slow stories quite quickly. I'm sorry about that. You also said 'Hermione or any ravenclaw would be acceptable,' though, which sounds a lot like a number of AU fics I've noticed knocking about here? So... you know, that IS out there, if you do want to read it. I don't think he's going to be besties with Hermione in this one, though.

**Comrade merl7**, who said "Can see why Snape wouldn't want to meet the Dursleys, to be fair." OH MY GOD I DIDN'T EVEN THINK OF THAT. /facepalm.

As always, a huge thank you to the people who reviewed. I always appreciate constructive (constructive!) criticism and feedback, and it makes me happy to know people like the story.


	15. Chapter 15

Trigger warning: abuse of a similar magnitude as last chapter, definite hints of victim-blamey stuff.

* * *

"My head hurts," he said groggily into the darkness of his closet.

_Finally_, hissed Voldemort's voice.

It sounded very loud in Harry's head, and he winced his eyes shut. "What happened?" He gingerly touched his head, feeling for any injuries. His head hurt, but it didn't feel like one of Voldemort's temper tantrums. There was a lump at the back of his skull and a dull drumbeat behind his eyes.

Harry remembered Dobby, remembered Aunt Petunia yelling... he remembered something about Dudley, maybe... and then waking up back in his closet.

_That muggle hit us, and then you fell and hit your head on the corner of that table_, said Voldemort in a tone that was calm but tight with strain. Harry flinched again. He could feel the strength of the feeling behind the words, locked down as tightly as Voldemort could to avoid compounding the throb of his head. Even so, he really, really hoped that the Dark Lord wasn't waiting to direct that smouldering anger at _him_.

_Uncle Vernon?_ Harry couldn't even remember seeing him. He wondered if that was bad.

_Head injuries can be like that. You shouldn't have gone to sleep, but I couldn't keep you awake._ A little sting leaked out into his scar at this admission, and Harry wondered how he'd possibly slept through the kind of racket and pain Voldemort could create in his head.

_You should have mentioned this was a possibility,_ snapped Voldemort suddenly, accusingly. _What good are you going to do if you're too injured to move?_

Harry frowned. "This is the first time that's happened," he said quickly. "I don't... I mean, he's never... you know, a shove or a push, maybe, but not..."

_If you die out in the middle of nowhere in some muggle's closet, it's just as bad for me as if we stayed at Hogwarts with Quirrell!_ Voldemort made a frustrated noise that caused Harry to hear an awful ringing. He closed his eyes and focused on breathing, but he still felt like everything around him was spinning horribly.

He wondered what had happened, if Aunt Petunia had just shut him back in the cupboard. "It's the first time," Harry repeated. "I think... because I ran away, and Dumbledore had to write to them... they wouldn't have liked that. They never responded to my letter, either..." he took another deep, measured breath. And then that elf, too. Suddenly the Dursleys were surrounded by magic.

_Foul, stupid animals. They should be so lucky, _Voldemort hissed, voice dripping with ire._ We should never have returned here._

"What about the wards?"

_What good are the wards against them?_ the voice snapped._ They're powering the wards!_

Harry flinched.

There was a long silence.

Harry felt very stupid, and a little ashamed of himself. He should have known, or predicted or... He swallowed. What was he even complaining about? He was a wizard; they were only muggles. He shouldn't have let it happen in the first place.

_No_, Voldemort agreed coolly, _you shouldn't._

"It's never happened before," repeated Harry, squeezing his eyes shut.

_Not that you remember_, Voldemort said snidely.

"No," said Harry insistently. "It's never happened before."

This didn't seem to make Voldemort feel any better, since he was still a storm of barely-contained anger in Harry's head. He made a cranky noise, but subsided.

_This isn't helping_, he said finally. Then, _Come on_. _Can you stand up?_

Harry gamely got to his feet. There was something wrong with his balance. He stumbled into the door and his ears rang. His stomach turned ominously.

"I'm going to throw up. And I can't get out anyway," he pointed out. "I still don't know how to unlock the door." A wandless unlocking spell required that he understand the mechanism of the lock; without examining them from the outside, he was helpless.

There was a long pause. Harry leaned heavily against the wall and breathed carefully.

_Do you remember how you learned to tie your tie?_ Voldemort said into the quiet between breaths.

Harry swallowed. _Yeah_, he said. He had to move his mouth to make sounds, which somehow made his head hurt worse. It was easier to think back rather than speak.

_It will be easier this time_, Voldemort said. Harry heard, softer still, his additional comment:_ you're weak and hungry and injured_, but he couldn't tell if he was meant to overhear. He remained silent.

Harry tried to bring up the visualisation he'd used the first time, thinking of the trees, but he couldn't hold the image in his head. After a while, he focused on the steady, comforting thump-_thump_ of his own heartbeat instead.

This time Harry could feel it when he was elbowed to the side inside his own head. He felt his body straighten up, felt his shoulders square themselves, but he wasn't conscious of doing it.

He felt and saw his hand rise to lay flat against the wall of the cupboard, and the voice that came from his mouth was his own - but the tone and inflection were all wrong. Voldemort opened Harry's mouth and hissed: "_Reducto_."

There was a thunderous crack, a great splintering and the shriek of tortured metal, and then a horrible groan, and the wall collapsed.

_Go_, said Voldemort, sounding thoroughly exhausted, and Harry found himself slammed back into the driver's seat of his own body, blinking in a rain of dust and plaster. There was yelling and footsteps further in the house, but Harry felt like time was moving very slowly. He felt Voldemort's weary retreat and knew he'd be no use for some time.

He lost a few seconds, because when he was next aware he was standing out in the hallway as the stairs splintered and groaned behind him. He heard it, but it didn't seem very important.

Harry walked toward the front door, stomach lurching all the way, and pulled it open with an unsteady jerk.

Mr Malfoy was standing outside in the late morning sunlight with an expression of distaste on his pale face. His hand was raised to knock on the Dursleys' door with the silver tip of his cane. He very nearly knocked on Harry's face instead.

He stopped with the tip of the cane held barely an inch from Harry's scar. "Mr Potter," he began, looking intently at Harry's face. "Are you -"

Whatever else he was going to say was lost in a rush of nausea and gagging, because Harry doubled over and threw up on his boots.

Harry was shaking when he finished. He was also looking at the hem of Mr Malfoy's very expensive robes. His vomit was entirely bile and water because he hadn't eaten, but he'd still _vomited_ on Draco's dad.

He froze, trying to imagine how angry the man would be, but he felt like there was an explosion going off in his skull. He sagged against the doorframe.

There was a disgusted pause. He heard Mr Malfoy mutter a cleaning spell, and then there was a shift in the light and Malfoy was gingerly crouching down to Harry's level.

"Mr Potter," he said again, much more quietly, but he was drowned out once more by the noise Aunt Petunia made when she came to investigate the noises and saw what had happened to her stairs.

Vernon was not visible, but he must have been somewhere in view of the corridor, because Harry could hear his response to the wreckage. "BOY," he bellowed, loudly enough that Harry flinched. He could imagine how his uncle's face would look: like a gigantic beet with a moustache. He swallowed down the taste of bile and acid.

"My _stairs_!" Shrieked Aunt Petunia. She sounded like a very loud kettle boiling over, and drowned out whatever Uncle Vernon was yelling for a moment, but when her scream died off Harry could hear his voice, loud and clear: "...you're _never_ going back to that freak school, boy! Never! I'm locking you up!"

Harry chanced a glance up. There was a tall, pretty blond woman standing next to Mr Malfoy, and even to Harry's blurry vision she had an expression of great and towering disgust, like she smelled something really foul.

It was probably Harry, since he was the one vomiting all over everybody. "Sorry," he said shortly. She glanced at him, and then glanced at Mr Malfoy. He raised one eyebrow, just a little, and her mouth quirked in an expression Harry couldn't quite grasp.

He was distracted again when Vernon's thundering footsteps finally brought him into view of the front door, where he stopped dead. His voice died when he laid eyes on Mr Malfoy, who he obviously recognised from the train platform in London.

"What are you doing on my property?" he asked flatly, addressing himself to Mr Malfoy.

"Mr Potter is late for an engagement," said the woman, who Harry suddenly realised had to be Mrs Malfoy, stepping daintily over the Dursleys' threshold and onto their carpet, which was sprinkled with plaster dust from Harry's clothing.

"Miss, you are breaking and entering," said Uncle Vernon, his face going from red to puce, "and I demand that you leave my house at once."

"Sit down," said Mr Malfoy, guiding Harry to lean against the wall and more or less ignoring the conversation going on around them. Harry sat obediently. His limbs were shaking and his head really, really hurt. He could

"I assure you," said Mrs Malfoy, "I have no intention of remaining any longer than necessary in your..." she looked around at the mess of broken plaster and wooden chips with a dubious expression, "house."

Mr Malfoy's dragonhide-gloved hands were suddenly on his face, pushing his hair out of the way and carefully examining his head. "How long have you been sick?" he asked. He looked very intently at Harry's face, and wore a faintly uncomfortable expression. Harry thought he must have looked like the wrath of god to deserve that look.

"I'm not sick," said Harry. He could hear the sound of Uncle Vernon's voice like an enraged bull, and the soft, frosty responses of Mrs Malfoy, but he felt slow and fuzzy and distracted, staring stupidly at Mr Malfoy's face. "I got hit. And then I hit my head."

Mr Malfoy's eyes flicked away from Harry's face for just a second. They were only a shade darker than Draco's, the grey of a threatening sky. "Do you remember when you were hit?" he asked, loudly enough for the rest of the room to hear. There was a lull in the argument, but it was brief.

Harry blinked slowly. "Last night, I think," he said.

He saw the man's jaw clench. "I see," he said.

Uncle Vernon was bellowing behind Mr Malfoy's shoulder. Harry only caught the end of what he was saying: "-damage to our property!"

The stairs gave another really ominous groan.

"What in Merlin's name was going on that you felt you had to attack the stairs?" asked Mr Malfoy.

Harry stared at him speechlessly. "I don't know, sir," he said, swallowing against his hammering pulse.

"Come now, Mr Potter," said Mr Malfoy, "you know it's not the obvious choice. If you were angry with them - and given the moral quality of muggles in general, I don't doubt it - you'd have attacked one of them -"

"I wouldn't," said Harry flatly.

" - or you'd have done something people could see, defaced that metal contraption with the wheels outside, blown up the bins, something obvious."

Harry shook his head.

Mr Malfoy's lips thinned. "Why under the stairs?" he asked again, much more loudly.

Harry swallowed and ducked his head, trying to get away from his gaze. For all he knew, Mr Malfoy could read minds, too. "I don't know," he said tonelessly, looking at the floor.

He realised much too late that Mr Malfoy's question hadn't been meant for Harry, not really.

"Is that a _bed_?" Mrs Malfoy's voice sounded alarmed. "What in Merlin's name is...?"

"IF YOU DO NOT LEAVE OUR PROPERTY," bellowed Uncle Vernon in a panic, "I WILL SUMMON THE POLICE."

Uncle Vernon's defensive panic gave Harry a sudden moment of crystal clarity in which he realised that the Dursleys had known that they were doing something wrong, something they should be guilty and ashamed of, when they locked him away in the cupboard. It wasn't about discipline or protecting themselves or even just fearing magic. They _knew_ it was wrong. Harry's stomach twisted.

"Mr Potter," said Mr Malfoy again, in a voice infinitely softer and more careful, "why the stairs?"

Harry hid his face against his knees and didn't answer at all.

He heard the soft creak of Mr Malfoy's dragonhide boots and the silky swish of expensive fabric when the man stood up, but he didn't look up. There was a terrible confusion of voices and boots and the groan of the house.

"We can't kill them," Harry heard Mr Malfoy say clearly through the chaos of the next few minutes, "it wouldn't look right if they died. The Ministry -"

"They'd deserve it," said Mrs Malfoy's cold voice.

"What muggle doesn't?" muttered Mr Malfoy in response. Harry hugged his knees more tightly.

The Dursleys were yelling, really yelling now, and the house was making horrible creaking groans. There was plaster dust everywhere and his stomach hurt and his head ached, and -

Harry got up and went unsteadily outside to the garage. It was almost absurdly quiet outside.

He got his wand from where his uncle had stored it and rested his face against the cold garage wall. He contemplated getting his other things, doing something about the trunk where all his school things were locked away - but he didn't have the energy. The wand was the important thing, he decided. Anything else could be replaced.

"Mr Potter."

Harry started, clutching his wand tightly. He turned and found Mr Malfoy looking at him, standing in the daylight outside the opening of the Dursleys' garage. The man had a good poker face, and it was very difficult to tell what, if anything, was going on behind those grey eyes.

"Narcissa has gone ahead to the Department of Communities and Social Welfare to have your guardians declared incompetent," he said. "I'm to take you to a healer."

Harry hunched his shoulders. "Do we... have to tell them?" he mumbled.

"Yes," said Mr Malfoy. His voice was implacable.

Harry stared at his toes.

Mr Malfoy sighed deeply and picked his way over to Harry, looking as though he wished he was anywhere else, and rather as though the assorted bits and pieces in the garage might be contagious in their pure, inescapable _muggleness_.

"I assume, Mr Potter," he said softly, "that you didn't especially enjoy staying in that cupboard."

Harry didn't know how to respond to that. He wanted to say that of course he didn't, but he couldn't make his voice work. He just couldn't say it aloud. He looked away.

"You don't have to talk about it for long," said Mr Malfoy, which was cold comfort but had the advantage of honesty. "A healer will examine you and make the necessary paperwork, and you'll have to talk to the healer and an official from the Ministry, and then that should be all that's necessary," he said soothingly.

Harry gnawed his bottom lip.

"Give me your hand," said Mr Malfoy, holding his out. "And we'll go talk to the healers."

Harry looked at the man's gloved hand in silence for a second. And it _was_ silent. He couldn't hear the Dursleys, and he doubted that they'd have just let Malfoy wander around their property without being loud about it.

He frowned, remembering abruptly that the soft-voiced man in front of him was actually a Death Eater. "Did you curse them?"

"Narcissa," he admitted.

"Are they-?"

"Toads," said Mr Malfoy indifferently. "I'm sure somebody will be out to reverse their transfiguration. Eventually."

"I didn't know people actually did that," said Harry inanely, still looking at the man's extended hand. He put his hand carefully into Malfoy's.

"The old ones are the best," said Mr Malfoy, and Apparated them away.

There was a soft pressure sound, a strange pop - and everything dissolved into a crushing blackness. The pressure became almost unbearable, and then with another soft sound, they were in an alleyway next to a large, red brick department store.

Harry breathed. He felt very like throwing up again. Mr Malfoy had wisely backed out of range, and was watching him warily.

He leaned his head back against the icy wall and breathed carefully though his nose. "I'm okay," said Harry.

"You did better than most children do the first time they're party to a Side-Along Apparition," said Mr Malfoy, eading Harry's unsteady steps just around the corner. "It's not far," he added.

They crossed through the window of the department store, and suddenly they were in a hospital.

Harry blinked.

It looked like a hospital, but it didn't smell like any muggle hospital he'd ever been in, and the injuries were much stranger. There was a woman doing needlework in the waiting area who had a tentacle instead of a hand, and a man sobbing brokenly over a one-winged canary which, upon listening, Harry determined was probably his brother.

Of course, the waiting area was for other people. Certainly not for Mr Malfoy.

"Mr Malfoy," A tall, dark-haired healer came to them immediately, with a scroll and quick-scrawling quill hovering behind his shoulder. "Opening the new ward you donated wasn't scheduled until the day after..." he looked down at Harry. "Harry Potter?" he said, eyes flicking from Harry's eyes up to his scar.

Harry pulled his hand away from Mr Malfoy to flatten his hair down. He nearly lost his balance.

"Mr Potter is injured," said Malfoy.

"Oh," the healer looked a little bit alarmed. Then he looked around, but all of the other healers seemed not to see or hear him, and they were all suddenly very busy. "Well," he said then. "I suppose it's you and I, Mr Potter."

Only a few moments later, the healer had him floating on a seat and was herding him into a private examination room. He heard Mr Malfoy talking behind them, "...blow to the head. He doesn't seem that confused, but he's been throwing up."

"Unfortunately, Mr Malfoy," said the healer tentatively at the door, between Malfoy and Harry with his hand clutching the door frame, "only family -"

"Yes, I am," said Malfoy smoothly, shouldering his way into the room.

"I." The healer looked at a loss for a second, eyes flicking between Mr Malfoy and Harry. "But-" he said.

"Excuse me, Healer Lancelot," interrupted a woman at the door suddenly. "A Gawain Cuthbert here to see you and your patient, from Communities and Social Welfare."

The healer suddenly looked as though he wanted to be anywhere else, but it was much too late. A very skinny wizard with dark eyes and dark hair and a large mole on his nose came into the room. He was armed with a pile of parchment, a green quill and a heavy camera.

"Gawain Cuthbert," he said, inclining his head to the healer as he kicked the door sharply closed behind him, "Social Welfare Office. Mr Potter," he said, offering his hand.

Harry looked at it for a second too long, and the man dropped his extended hand and instead took up his camera and began snapping photographs of Harry's face.

"Er," said Harry tentatively. "Who is going to see those?"

"The department staff only, and only as necessary," said Mr Malfoy. "Otherwise it would be a grave breach of the Department's Protection of Minors Directive. Wouldn't it, Mr Cuthbert?"

"Er," said the man. Then, quickly, "Yes, certainly," and Harry had the sneaking suspicion that he was used to playing fast and loose with the policy. He took another few photographs and then let the healer get on with his business.

Under Mr Malfoy's disconcerting supervision, Healer Lancelot checked Harry's pupils and ran his wand over his head. "Definitely a head injury," he said grimly.

"On the record?" said Cuthbert.

"On the record," the healer agreed. "Heavy blow to the front of the face, and then the skull collided with something," he went on. "This is what's caused those lovely black eyes, too, Mr Potter," he said with a kind little smile. "All of the little blood vessels have broken. Not to worry, we can fix that right up."

Harry tried a smile, but he probably didn't do it very well.

There was a sharp, insistent knock at the door suddenly, and they all paused in their business. Healer Lancelot went to the door and opened it a crack.

As soon as the handle was turned, the door slammed inward, sending the healer reeling backward.

A flashbulb went off with the brightness of lit magnesium. Harry cringed back. When he could see again, he was face to face with a tall, heavy-jawed lady clutching an alligator-skin purse.

She was dressed in red robes, tight-fitting and raw silk, and her hair fell in very elaborate curls. "Mr Potter," she said, leaning forward and clutching at his hand with long, painted nails that dug into his skin, "you poor, poor boy. With the knowledge of the Wizarding community's compassionate support, do you have any statement to make about this sad and unconscionable act of abuse?"

"Er," said Harry. He wasn't sure, but he thought her glasses might have had diamonds in them. "I..."

"Don't answer her," said Mr Malfoy sharply. "She's a scavenger. How did you even find out about this so quickly?"

The blond woman swung around on her heel and pointed her cameraman to Mr Malfoy, who stared blankly into the light as it flashed in his face.

"Mr Malfoy," she purred, touching her blond curls. "Lucius. I think the last time I wrote about you, you were on trial for war crimes, weren't you?" Her teeth flashed. It wasn't really a smile.

"And now - well, tell me all about it," she inched closer, until Harry was sure Mr Malfoy must be feeling her breath. "We're all on the edge of our seats. This is a new face for you, Lucius, isn't it?" Her quill, which had been hovering and madly scribbling, took the opportunity to flick its bright red feather at Mr Malfoy's chin. His lip curled. "Are you now the brave rescuer?" she flashed her teeth at him again.

His eyes flicked from her to the doorway and back. She seemed to notice, because she said through her teeth, "Come on, now, Lucius, don't be dour," and she inched even closer to him, well into his personal space, until it would have seemed more natural for them to touch. "Don't the public deserve to know how this came to happen to the hero of the Wizarding World?"

Harry swallowed and looked very hard at his hands. Mr Cuthbert and Healer Lancelot were standing very still, out of range, as though by making no sudden movements they could hope to avoid her attention.

There was a series of hard cracks, and suddenly the room was full of people. They yelled warnings and drew wands, and then the blond lady was being escorted swiftly from the examination room.

There was an overwhelming silence in the wake of her departure.

Healer Lancelot straightened his lime robes and went to close and lock the door.

"There's no hope of this staying out of the papers now," said Mr Cuthbert, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "It'll be all over. Bloody 'Boy Who Lived Consigned To Life Of Abuse By Lax Ministry Regulation,' or something," he predicted.

"The Prophet can't _run_ it," said Healer Lancelot fiercely. "He's a minor. He's - he has a protected status."

Cuthbert gave him a long, unimpressed look. "It's going to be a bloody nightmare," he predicted wearily. "I can only hope she doesn't know my bloody name."

The healer looked a little bit alarmed at this idea.

"Er," said Harry, swallowing. "What was..."

"Rita Skeeter," sighed Mr Malfoy. The healer and the Ministry official cringed at the sound of her name. "Reporter for the Prophet. Or the highest bidder."

"Ugh," spat Cuthbert. "She writes gossip. Ten per cent truth and ninety per cent utter shit, if you ask me, and she's not very careful about what she puts down, either."

Harry didn't like how that sounded. "How did she -"

"Leak at the Ministry, probably," said Healer Lancelot. "It happens sometimes," he said sympathetically, returning to his examination of Harry's head.

"_Leak_," sniffed Malfoy. "The Ministry leaks like a sieve."

"That's enough," said Mr Cuthbert, who was looking terribly sour at Mr Malfoy now, "We'd better get down to business before somebody breaks down the door to photograph Mr Potter again. I'm going to ask you some questions, Mr Potter, and it would be in your own best interests to answer honestly and directly. Have you been subject to this kind of abuse before, Mr Potter?"

Harry was silent for a long moment. He wasn't sure whether he should answer Cuthbert at all. Mr Malfoy knew about - about the hitting, and the cupboard, anyway - and he would undoubtedly tell them everything he knew about it if Harry didn't. He licked his lips and tried not to look at anybody. He wished Voldemort was there to tell him what to do, but when he tried to rouse that dark presence in his mind, all he got was an unhappy mumble.

He looked at his hands for a long moment, thinking it through. If he did tell them, and they did declare the Dursleys incompetent, he might be able to live with somebody else - or just stay at the school all year. That would be pretty alright. He licked his lips.

That didn't mean that he wanted to talk about it to strangers. Or in front of Draco's father. What must he think of him after all this mess? He'd been such a baby in front of him.

He spoke about it anyway "Not - not like this," Harry said numbly, right as the healer finally performed a spell for the nausea. Harry nearly turned to jelly with the relief of it.

Lancelot grinned at him.

"Could you pinpoint what caused the violence on this occasion?"

Harry opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. After a few seconds of unhappy silence in which the healer began digging through a shelf of potions, he said, "I live with muggles. A house elf came to give me a message, and he scared them."

There was an awkward pause.

Then, after a second, Cuthbert blurted. "A _muggle_ did this? But you're a wizard!"

Harry recoiled.

"You may perhaps be familiar with the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery," Mr Malfoy pointed out smoothly, coming around to stand beside Harry while the healer worked.

"I should think this would constitute a matter of self-defence," Cuthbert pointed out, staring at Harry and scrunching up his nose.

Harry swallowed. He knew it was his own fault. He knew he should have just kept his mouth shut, and then nobody could sit there and tell him how badly he'd messed up. Did anybody really need to know about this? He rubbed his scar, trying to puzzle it through, but he was awfully tired and confused.

"Then you and I are in agreement, Mr Cuthbert," Malfoy said. "But it's unreasonable to expect an eleven year old to determine the appropriate use of wandless self-defensive magic in the split-second between a hand being raised and the blow being landed."

It wasn't a big room, but Harry suddenly felt absurdly grateful for Mr Malfoy's looming presence. He didn't want to answer this interrogation on his own, and Voldemort was too tired to help.

Mr Cuthbert asked him a lot of other questions, mostly with regard to his daily life among the Dursleys, a lot of which were not really applicable to Harry: who were his friends when he was not at Hogwarts, what did he do with his free time, so forth. Harry felt rather pathetic answering these, since a lot of his responses required him to admit that he was friendless, had no hobbies, and rarely left the house. He was lucky in that Mr Malfoy had a very good blank face and he couldn't tell what he was thinking either way, and Cuthbert didn't seem to care except as his job required him to.

Healer Lancelot's mouth was a grim line as he fired off diagnostic spells, however, and however kind he was, it made Harry nervous. He wasn't sure if he was going to be in trouble or not, and he couldn't tell what people would say about him.

"Your..." Cuthbert frowned at his notes, "your _cousin_, Narcissa Malfoy," he glanced up at Mr Malfoy with raised eyebrows, but whatever he saw on the other man's face made him look right back at the parchment again, "says that the muggles made you live in a cupboard."

Harry tensed. Heart hammering, he forced himself to answer, "Yes."

This turned out to be a mistake, because then there were a lot of questions about the cupboard, and whether he was allowed to leave, and some about what he might have done to deserve being sent there that made it seem as though Cuthbert thought Harry was lying.

They hashed and rehashed the story for hours, and Harry answered the same way over and over. He felt smaller and smaller as he was asked to answer each new question.

"What you're saying, Mr Potter, is that you have been consistently punished for accidental magic with isolation and starvation, and that upon returning to the..." he glanced at his notes, "Dursleys' home for the Christmas holidays you were punished in a similar manner because you had not completed your chores within a satisfactory time period, whereupon a house elf, coming to check on you, was the cause of an altercation which led to your present injuries?" Cuthbert drawled, looking him up and down.

"Yes," said Harry wearily. It was the third time he had answered to such a summary. It was dark outside.

The healer had been done for some time now, but he'd remained in the room, eyeing Cuthbert and Mr Malfoy unhappily over his paperwork.

"You do understand that these are serious allegations against a guardian, don't you, Mr Potter?" asked Cuthbert.

Harry felt his eyes get hot, and blinked hard so he wouldn't cry. He wouldn't. He felt Voldemort stirring, weary and displeased by Harry's too-strong emotions. He glowered instead. He opened his mouth to respond angrily, but he was interrupted by Mr Malfoy's polished drawl.

"I believe Harry has answered all of the questions he is required to answer, Mr Cuthbert," said Mr Malfoy. "It's insulting that you've kept him here for as long as you have."

"Gotta get the story straight. I don't want anybody to accuse me of not being thorough enough when this hits the papers," said Cuthbert, looking unhappily between Malfoy and Harry.

"Indeed? I see no reason for _your_ name to be in the paper at all," said Malfoy with a sniff. "And, really, Mr Cuthbert, with the attitude you've displayed in this room, perhaps you'd feel you were more thorough if you relinquished your job to the Auror office."

"Well, you'd know all about that, Mr Malfoy," said Cuthbert neutrally.

"Inappropriately antagonistic interrogation on behalf of the Ministry of Magic?" Malfoy drawled. "Yes, I suppose I would. However, your tragic bureaucratic blunders with regard to my handling should have no bearing on this matter. I don't expect I need to remind you that Mr Potter is still the _victim_ in this scenario."

"And with all due _respect_, Malfoy," Mr Cuthbert set his jaw, "It's important that he knows he'll be in a lot of trouble if he's caught lying."

"I'm _not_ lying," Harry said, gripping the edge of the bed tightly. His voice sounded high and aggrieved even to his own ears. "I knew you weren't going to believe me, you should have just -"

"That's enough." A heavy gloved hand landed on his shoulder. Harry went still. A second later he recognised it as Mr Malfoy's, and began to breathe again. He started shaking and couldn't seem to stop.

"Healer Lancelot," said Mr Malfoy, coldly and abruptly and rather a lot like Cuthbert no longer even existed, "are you finished with your assessment?"

"Almost," the healer agreed. He performed a spell which created a triplicate copy of the paperwork he was writing. He passed one on to Cuthbert, who looked at it and grunted sourly before adding it to his own notes. Then he looked at the other two copies and then uncertainly back to Malfoy. "Usually the second copy would go to the guardian of a minor," he said flatly.

"I'll take it," said Harry.

There was a pause. "Of course," said Lancelot, and then with a rueful smile the healer handed over a second copy of the document to Harry. "Don't lose it, Mr Potter," he said, wrapping Harry's fingers around it carefully. "It constitutes legal evidence of abuse. Otherwise, if it goes to court, you might have to testify by Veritaserum."

Harry blinked. "Oh," he said. He looked at the report.

It felt very strange to see it all written down. It looked... well, it looked a lot more severe than Harry felt it was.

And even stranger to see what the diagnostic spells could show.

He swallowed. "Thank you, Healer Lancelot," he said.

The blustering Mr Cuthbert grunted again and got to his feet as though all the weight of the world rested upon his skinny shoulders. He didn't bother to wish any of them farewell before ambling out the door and into the hospital proper. It was very noisy outside the door, full of voices competing with one another.

It took Harry few seconds to realise that Malfoy was reading the record over his shoulder. "Ah. Some food might be in order, I think," he said in a very neutral voice. "Do you have any recommendations, Healer?"

"Will he be in your care for long, Mr Malfoy?" Healer Lancelot asked.

Mr Malfoy tucked some long hair behind one ear. "Until he returns to school, I should think, unless..."

"Unless the Ministry sticks its nose in where it's not wanted, yes," said the healer sourly. "He's seriously underweight for his age and height, so it might be best if I wrote you a list..." he took a few minutes to do just that, scrawling quickly and only barely legibly with a brown-speckled quill, and then he tore off his bit of parchment and handed it to Mr Malfoy, who glanced at it and then pocketed it.

"I assume we can't Side-Along from inside the exam rooms," Mr Malfoy said, eyeing the door out.

Harry frowned. He hadn't even considered that there might be people waiting for them outside.

"Not from inside the rooms, I'm afraid," Healer Lancelot shook his head. "It's a part of the privacy spells."

Mr Malfoy nodded as though this was a sensible comment. "Of course. Very well. Mr Potter," he said, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders, "let's go."

Harry took the offered hand and hung on tightly. Mr Malfoy opened the door of the exam room to a sudden series of blinding flashes.

"Mr Potter!" yelled a huge number of voices. "Mr Potter!" Somebody's hand brushed Harry's as he crossed the threshold. A man's hand grabbed at his arm, nails scraping. "Mr Potter!"

Mr Malfoy's back foot cleared the threshold of the exam room and then, with a thunderous _crack_ and a wash of sucking blackness, they Disapparated.

* * *

Hi comrades. So, I've been told there are a couple of typos in this chapter. I'm tired and overexposed to the writing and I honestly can't find them, so it's going up as it is. Sorry.

To **Comrade** **Burner, **whoasked "Is the any point to this? Or you jus want to drag things out about the "horrible" life of Harry" - I believe that fanfiction doesn't require a point. It is self-indulgent by nature. However, inasmuch as this whole story has a point (er...), then yes, chapter 14 did have a point. Thank you for your feedback, though.

To **Comrade Merl7 - **I actually think Dumbledore would have liked for Snape to go with Harry, but wasn't super shocked at the good professor's refusal on the basis of 'special treatment'. However, the second choice of Hagrid was probably tactical in the way you suggested, yes. :)

To **Comrade Lord Toewart** - I think you raise an interesting point about Dudley! I think in this 'verse he's never had the exposure to scary magic the way he does when Hagrid scares the pants off him in PS/SS, so he's less frightened and more willing to come help his mother. But I also think that nobody's totally bad or lazy or just crap, so we'd all probably help somebody we cared about if they were upset like that! (Or... I hope?)


	16. Chapter 16

They arrived outside a set of impressive wrought-iron gates with the crack of their Apparition echoing in the cold night air. Harry found the landing made him only faintly queasy now that the healer had fixed up his head.

The gates turned smoky and intangible when Mr Malfoy waved a hand at them. The air had a funny metallic taste as they passed through them, and Harry found himself running his tongue over the roof of his mouth curiously.

After dark the moonlight leeched all the colour from the world, so when they came out the other side it was into a land of manicured monochrome: dark grass, huge shadowy hedges, the moon reflected on still water.

There was a long, straight drive all the way up to a house that was a strange mix of construction where heavyset square building met high pointed arches and at least one soaring spire. Despite the mash-up of architecture, each addition seemed calculated; the overall impact was very imposing.

Harry felt tiny and not very welcome when the doors flung themselves open to invite them across the threshold of that enormous house. It didn't get much better inside: the hallway was cavernous and only dimly lit, so that the smokeless fire from the wall sconces faded into the blackness of an enormous vaulted ceiling.

Harry paused to glance around. Portraits of tall, pale men and women lined the walls, and their cool eyes watched Harry cautiously.

An elf appeared with a sharp crack to take Mr Malfoy's cloak. Dobby's eyes were huge as saucers and he gave a startled croak when he saw Harry. He very nearly dropped the garment he was holding. "Mr Harry Potter!"

Harry scowled at him.

Mr Malfoy eyed the elf.

Three of Dobby's long, thin, heavily bandaged fingers curled around the edge of Mr Malfoy's cloak. Thus displayed, he glanced fearfully up at the man. "Dobby has ironed Dobby's hands, master," he offered nervously.

There was a silence. The portraits looked on disapprovingly.

"Return to the kitchens," said Mr Malfoy in a soft voice.

Dobby hesitated. His huge, lamp-like eyes shifted from Harry to Mr Malfoy and back. And then again.

Harry felt his own eyebrows rise slightly. He didn't know a lot about house elves in general, but it seemed very uncharacteristic for one to openly disobey a direct order from its own master while in the room with him.

"Now," Mr Malfoy added, voice warming ominously. "We will discuss this later."

Whether by the tone of voice or the explicitness of the order, Dobby threw one last anguished look at Harry and disappeared with a crack.

"Barmy elf," said one of the portraits.

Harry glanced up at her. She was blond, but her face bore a striking resemblance to Dorea Potter's.

Mr Malfoy followed his glance, and his tight expression eased. "Evening, Elladora. This is Mr Potter."

Harry had never been formally introduced to a portrait before and wasn't quite sure what to do. "Pleased to meet you," he said carefully.

"Potter," she said reflectively, tapping her lower lip with one manicured fingernail. "A serviceable family, I suppose," she said in a rather indifferent voice. Then she inclined her head stiffly.

Harry swallowed his nerves and bobbed his head awkwardly.

"Oh, you're back," said another woman's voice. Harry turned to see Narcissa Malfoy silhouetted in a doorway leading deeper into the house. It was nearly nine o'clock at night, but her clothing was pressed and her hair was immaculate. Harry might have felt like he'd been hit by a truck, but Mrs Malfoy looked bright-eyed and ready to greet the day.

"It looks as though it all went all right?"

Mr Malfoy nodded. "Some instructions from the healers - and that Skeeter woman broke into the exam room," he added, although he didn't seem as annoyed as he had at the time.

Harry looked curiously up at him and found him sharing a significant glance with his wife.

"Must be a leak at the Ministry, I suppose," she said, lifting one shoulder in a helpless shrug, but her blue eyes were dark and the corner of her mouth quirked just a little.

Harry wasn't sure what it was that was passing between them, and he was a bit too tired to care. He started when Mrs Malfoy held out her hand to him. "It's a pleasure to meet you on better terms, Mr Potter," she said, looking gravely down at him.

He took her hand and shook it carefully. Her skin was very soft, and her hand felt almost too dainty to be flesh and bone.

"Thank you," he said, trying to be as polite as possible. He felt like he didn't have enough manners to prepare himself for the terrifying trial of meeting Draco's mother. "It's good to meet you properly. Thank you for your letter."

Her lips curved into a smile that was nearly sincere. "Well, Mr Potter -"

But whatever was well was cut off by the sharp cry of a raven, which swooped into the entry hall with dangerous speed. It dropped a hastily-scrawled bit of parchment and wheeled away, wings flapping frantically to stay aloft.

The parchment fluttered through the air, heavier than paper, and Mrs Malfoy caught it and examined the writing - which Harry could tell, even from his vantage, was not written in a very good hand.

"Oh, Merlin's bloody -" she glanced at Harry and cut herself off mid-sentence. "They've convened another Wizengamot assembly," she said to Mr Malfoy instead.

"At nine o'clock?" Mr Malfoy asked, glancing at the grandfather clock with its dark wood and gilt edges. "Convened by whom?"

"Albus Dumbledore, who else?" she asked, waving the letter at him vaguely while she ordered her cloak from a house elf. "It can't be about -" she looked at Harry and stopped talking again, but Harry wasn't quite _that_ dumb, no matter how tired he was. He ducked his head and stared at the floor. Of course. These people were Death Eaters. If Dumbledore did know - and he might, given that he seemed to be in contact with the Dursleys - well, Harry couldn't pick what he'd be feeling, not really, but he didn't think the Headmaster would be happy.

"Too early, surely," Mr Malfoy said, frowning down at Harry.

She shook her head, sending her artfully arranged blond hair fluttering for a second. It fell back into place perfectly a moment later. "It was at a quarter to - I'm already late."

Mr Malfoy took the letter and examined it, frowning. "We're lucky Macnair thought to notify you," he said.

Mrs Malfoy's shoes snapped on the broad marble floors as she swept past, her cloak affixing itself by magic. She waved one hand to set her blond hair back into its sleek coiffure. "I must dash, I'm afraid," she touched her husband's arm as she moved past. "It is good to meet you, Mr Potter," she added to him, brow furrowed.

Harry nodded, but she was already gone, away with a pop. Harry looked up at Mr Malfoy. "You don't have to go too?" he asked curiously.

"I?" He looked bemused for a second. "No, Narcissa holds all the votes for house Malfoy - along with the ones she inherited herself."

Harry frowned. He knew a bit about the Wizengamot and its inherited seats from Voldemort. The two hundred and forty seats of that council were used to vote in a Ministry and determine the passing of specific acts of legislation - but he only really knew enough to have a superficial understanding of Voldemort's endless political complaints.

He had a sneaking suspicion, though, that Mrs Malfoy probably held a lot of seats. It was interesting information, this late-evening meeting; he would have to remember it. Voldemort would be interested.

"Come along," said Mr Malfoy, lifting a hand to Elladora, who watched everything from inside her portrait frame with those same grey, calculating eyes. She nodded to them, and Harry, feeling a bit lost, gratefully followed Mr Malfoy out of the entry hall.

"Elladora Black was your grandmother's great-aunt, I think," said Mr Malfoy in a quiet voice as they walked down a long hall.

Harry blinked. He wondered how people became so adept at sorting out all these familial relations. "Oh," he said, unable to think of anything else to say.

Mr Malfoy cut him a sideways glance. "You must be very tired," he said after a moment. "The elves have made you a room up across from Draco's," he said, leading Harry up a long, winding stair. The architecture had drifted again somehow seamlessly, providing them with broad marble steps with decorative carvings set in the bannister and narrow, round-arched windows that would let in a very dramatic light during the day. "If you'll take some soup sent up from the kitchens, I'll leave you to sleep."

Soup, Harry thought. His stomach wanted it, quite badly, but his brain wasn't sure. He squashed that thought. "Thank you," he said quietly instead.

They came to a broad corridor decorated with one long painting of pale, grey-eyed men and women at a tea party, who seemed happily much too invested in passive-aggressive, smiling war over their scones to stare too hard at Harry.

The room he was shown was in the same colours as the Slytherin dorm at Hogwarts, a moment of blessed familiarity, although it also had broad windows with heavy green drapes and its own deep fireplace.

"It's very nice," Harry said.

"One of the elves will bring something up," said Mr Malfoy in his very neutral voice, lingering in the doorway.

Harry glanced at Mr Malfoy and realised from his calculating eyes and pursed lips that the older man was looking over the room himself, comparing it to the cupboard under the stairs, and Harry felt nervous and obscurely ashamed.

He felt his face heating, and then Mr Malfoy's gaze landed on him and he realised he must look flushed and miserable. He tried smiling.

Malfoy's poker face was very good. "I'll leave you to it, Mr Potter," he said, and then he disappeared from the doorway, closing it behind him.

Harry was too tired to reflect much, and too concerned with physical comfort to pay much attention to his gnawing sense of shame. The silence in his head was more difficult to ignore, but he knew that Voldemort would feel rested just as soon as he had.

He ate soup, which was a clear broth, sprinkled with vegetables. The house elves had garnished it with some kind of gamey-tasting poultry - _not_ on the healer's list - which was arrayed on top like an apology. He had to stop half way through, feeling full and exhausted.

He took off Dudley's cast-offs and left them on the chair before he crawled into the oversize bed, where he went to sleep almost immediately.

He woke like he'd heard a gunshot, tense and sudden and breathing like a racehorse, but there was nothing in the room that ought to have given him a shock.

_Unbelievable_, said Voldemort scathingly, and Harry dropped back to the pillows, breathing again, and supposing he knew exactly what had woken him. _Now that the whole world knows, we're never going to get back to the muggles' house._

"That was sort of the point," Harry said aloud. When his heart had slowed, he discovered that his face was sore. He blinked and realised that he could see - he'd fallen asleep with his glasses on. Annoyed, he pulled them off and rubbed the places where they'd left red marks on his face.

_It was stupid!_ At least some of the pain was Voldemort's anger. Harry rubbed his scar and buried his face in his blanketed knees so the light wouldn't hurt his eyes. _Those wards are one of a kind - we'll have twice as much trouble getting to them now. And think of the attention you've drawn to yourself, you __**idiot**__ -_

There was a pause as yesterday's memories flashed up in Harry's head.

_Is that Skeeter?_ said Voldemort flatly and suddenly.

_Nobody_ seemed to like Rita Skeeter much. If Voldemort hated her, too, Harry was a little surprised she was still alive. He chose not to answer him. "You _did_ study the wards," he muttered instead, resentfully and mostly to his knees.

Voldemort hissed, dull and snakelike. Harry's head throbbed. He closed his eyes again.

_I made it to Wiltshire_, he offered after a few long, painful seconds.

_I should hope so, since Lucius practically carried you_, sniped Voldemort. _He must be thrilled,_ he went on. _The Boy Who Lived, rescued from muggles, guest in his home,_ he added, voice simmering.

_He's been really nice_, Harry said after a second's thought. Lucius had been, too: nice in ways Harry hadn't expected; silent and without comments, carefully avoiding difficult topics.

_Oh, yes,_ said Voldemort mockingly._ The Malfoys are very nice. Never nicer than when you have something they want._

Harry wasn't quite sure what to make of this comment. The Malfoy family seemed basically to have everything they could want, so he failed to see what use he could be to them.

_I'm sure they'll think of something._

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. _Mrs Malfoy seems... not less nice, but very busy. Oh,_ he added, having thought of something. Quickly he explained to Voldemort about the letter Mrs Malfoy had received from Macnair, and the late Wizengamot session.

Voldemort took a deep mental breath and redirected his anger. Harry could almost feel him gathering his patience.

_It __**could**__ be about you_, he said reflectively, _but on the other hand, the mess with your report to Social Welfare would have made a very good distraction. If what you've said is correct, Narcissa holds a lot of power, but quorum for the Wizengamot is still calculated on attendees instead of votes._

He lost Harry somewhere around 'quorum,' but it didn't stop him from running on with speculation. _Although if Dumbledore knows that the -_ he hesitated _- the other me, is still alive - which I think can be assumed - and he's concerned about your welfare, I expect the last place he'd want you is at Malfoy Manor. On the other hand, all this depends on whether you're important to him for sentimental or political reasons, and to what degree..._

_I don't have enough information to speculate_, he said finally.

There was a silence.

Harry picked at the bedcovers absently. There was a thought, which he didn't like bringing up, but he felt it was becoming necessary. He thought it explained quite well Dumbledore's dedication to prying into Harry's affairs, which, it had to be allowed, was well and truly beyond the role of a concerned teacher. He didn't know how well Voldemort was going to take the idea, though.

He took a deep breath._ A while back you said there was a prophecy, _he said._ And you came to kill me because it said I would hurt you._ Voldemort had not actually specified Harry, but from textbook and historical reports of Harry's great victory over the Dark Lord, Harry had more or less inferred the truth. _You don't think maybe, because the other you isn't dead, he thinks..._

_I was wondering when you'd consider that,_ said Voldemort, sounding rather unsurprised - and a little unimpressed that it had taken Harry so long.

It relieved Harry to know that Voldemort _had_ thought of it before, since he responded really, really badly to unpleasant surprises.

_I'm not going to go into theories of mechanisms of fate and probability, and what it is that diviners and seers are actually tapping into when they make their prophecies,_ he said, which was just as well because Harry didn't think he'd be much use at understanding all that anyway, _but it's sufficiently complicated that I, at least, am not confident as to whether or not the conditions of the prophecy have already been met... 'death,' and 'vanquishment,' are rather slippery for an immortal. And, if the conditions have not been met, to whom do they actually apply?_

That was right - there was more than one Voldemort. In fact, reading between the lines, there were several. And all that business about immortality and death? Harry frowned.

Philosophy wasn't his strong point.

Largely because he was eleven.

_I don't know_, he said finally, and more in response to the problem as a whole than to any specific question.

_Put it out of your mind,_ Voldemort said._ It's not a problem we can resolve. I'd have to be insane to dash around trying to thwart a prophecy I only have half of anyway,_ he went on, blithely ignoring that by his own admission this was exactly what he had done when he'd rendered Harry an orphan.

If he heard this thought in Harry's head, he ignored it too.

The door banged open.

Harry jerked his head up, flinching wildly. Then he smiled.

"You _did_ make it!" Draco was in his green-trimmed pyjamas, and he spilled onto the bed with a grand disregard for Harry's limbs.

Harry fumbled for his glasses. "Yeah, I made it," he agreed, shoving them onto his nose again.

Of course, the first thing he said, grinning was: "Father said they turned the muggles into toads."

Harry felt his pleased expression slip, and he couldn't seem to recapture it. Of course Mr Malfoy would tell Draco. He swallowed. Well. It was only natural that -

_You'd better develop a thick skin between now and when the news stands open_, Voldemort pointed out, with no sympathy whatsoever._ I told you not to tell anybody. Merlin, what they must think of you._

_I couldn't help it,_ Harry said angrily.

_Yes_, Voldemort agreed. _That's what 'weak' means._

He was right. Harry gnawed the inside of his cheek. "Yeah," he said finally, looking up at Draco, who had a puzzled expression. "Your house elf is a nutter," he rallied.

Draco's nose wrinkled. "Dobby," he sighed. "Ugh, just pretend you didn't meet him," he said, waving one hand airily. Then, very abruptly, he said: "Father says they took your wand off you and didn't feed you."

Harry wrapped his arms a little tighter around his knees. "Uh-huh," he said neutrally.

"Wandless magic's really hard." Draco nodded. "Mother always says that muggles are really good at hurting witches - and wizards, obviously - especially when they're kids like us, so we all have to stick together and be careful of them... even though they're dumb and useless, because they breed like rats and there's so many of them and they set people on fire. I'm sorry you got stuck with them."

Strangely, that made Harry feel a little better. Voldemort's cynical presence didn't seem to think that this kind of response would be very common - but for the moment, Harry didn't care. "I don't think they've set people on fire for a while," he said weakly.

_No, they just lock them up and starve them._

Draco gave him a dubious look. "My mother says so," he said flatly.

Harry looked at him across the green-blanketed hump of his knees. "Well, I suppose," he said finally.

Then Draco glanced at him through a fringe of white-blond hair. "Father said... he said that there were reporters, and it'll be all over the paper because... you're you. The post owl hasn't come yet," he added helpfully.

"Probably." Definitely. He didn't want to think about it. He rubbed his hands through his hair. "Everybody at school is going to know," he muttered. He definitely didn't want to think about that.

What _were_ they going to think of him?

He didn't want to walk between classes with people staring at him - not just for some heroic deed he didn't even remember, but because he was that idiot who couldn't stop a bunch of muggles from hurting him.

He entertained a brief and ridiculous - but _vivid_ - fantasy of hiding under the bed.

Voldemort scoffed. _Pathetic_.

Draco gave him a helpless look. "I don't think you can do anything about it," he said finally. "But I came up to call you for breakfast anyway," he added. "I'm a bit bigger than you, but you can borrow some clothing until you get some proper robes - unless you want to wear your school robes. I think father had the other clothes burned."

"Burned?" Harry blinked. He didn't like Dudley's castoffs, but burning seemed unnecessarily drastic.

"Well, they're..." Draco shrugged.

"Um, yeah, I'll borrow some clothes, if you don't mind," Harry said. Perhaps it was better for both of them if Draco didn't finish that sentence.

The clothing Draco loaned him was big for him, true - but Dudley would have made two of Draco, so they seemed positively well-tailored by comparison, and green suited Harry.

Together they washed up and went down for breakfast. "This place is huge. I reckon I'd get lost," Harry murmured, looking up at the ceiling. They were very high up, but even from a distance Harry could see the ornate moulding. In rooms he glimpsed off to the side he could see that some of them even had huge intricate paintings laid into the walls while the plaster was still wet. Some of the inhabitants of these paintings waved as the boys went past.

"It's not as big as Hogwarts," Draco pointed out.

No, it wasn't; but for a family of three it seemed kind of ridiculous.

_It suits them, then,_ Voldemort said, with a sound like a yawn. Harry thought that perhaps he wasn't as well recovered from his display of magic yesterday as he was letting on.

When they made it down, they found Mrs Malfoy already at the breakfast table. She had her hair pinned carefully back, and she was dressed for the day in fashionable robes trimmed with warm fur, and seemed to be sorting through six or seven letters with a tea cup in one hand.

An glossy eagle owl perched on the back of her chair, the wood of which was scarred with claw marks. She looked up when the boys entered the breakfast room.

"Good morning," she said, summoning Draco with one hand so she could plant a - doubtless embarrassing - kiss on his forehead. He accepted it with aplomb. "Mr Potter," she went on, as Draco slid into a seat at the table. "You look much better. Did you sleep well?"

"Good morning," he said. He didn't think he'd ever been asked to say 'good morning' to an adult before, except in some of Professor Sprout's early classes. It felt very stiff in his mouth. Still, he knew more or less how manners worked... some of them, anyway. "Yes, thanks. Are you well?"

She watched him over the top of a letter. "Very well, thank you," she said gravely.

Harry was pretty sure she was making fun of him in some way, but he didn't know how to fix it.

_Forget that_, Voldemort said impatiently. _Ask her about the Wizengamot._

He ducked his head under her gaze. "Was your meeting all right?"

The corner of her mouth curled. "Quite all right, thank you. It didn't concern you at all, if that's what you're angling for," she added, and then concealed her lips behind her tea cup.

Harry nodded, because he could hardly tell her he had another interest in it without raising a great deal of suspicion. People his age weren't meant to be interested in politics.

She nodded as though this was as she'd expected. "It does pay to be media-savvy, in your position," she added thoughtfully.

Draco had been peering at her mail across the table. "Are they _all_ about Harry?" he asked incredulously.

"No, not all of them," said his mother, a little drily. She lifted the letter in her hand. "This one's from Gringotts."

Harry eyed the other six letters on the table. "I suppose the news stands have opened," he said, thinking back to Voldemort's comment. He took a deep breath.

"We have very specific post charms," Mrs Malfoy said. "Redirections and so on. These are the ones that made it through the wards," she waved her fingers absently at the pile. "They're all addressed to me, so you needn't concern yourself with them," she added.

Harry jerked his gaze guiltily back to his hands.

_Subtle_, drawled Voldemort.

Nobody ate until Mr Malfoy made an appearance, which took several long minutes. "He sleeps late and takes forever to do his hair," said Mrs Malfoy lightly, forcing Harry to try to determine whether or not she was joking.

Either way, when he did finally appear, there certainly was not a hair out of place. He had polished boots and a bottle-green frock coat, and Harry could only think that somebody so dressed ought to be off brooding about on a windswept moor.

Harry kept these thoughts to himself - and, unavoidably, to Voldemort, who was at best crankily resigned to his immaturity - and concentrated on the food that was at last served. Healer Lancelot's orders were being followed closely, so Harry found himself presented with more vegetables and broth while Draco sat across from him eating sausage and eggs.

As unexciting as vegetables in broth were, Harry found the rich smells of the others' food made him queasy. And nobody was rude enough to comment on how small a portion he'd been served.

Harry knew his own nervousness, but he couldn't help but feel that they were _all_ waiting for the post owl. When the Daily Prophet finally smacked onto the table, for a second nobody moved.

Harry couldn't avoid the headline screaming at him from the front page: HARRY JAMES POTTER: BOY WHO LIVED... IN A CUPBOARD? by Rita Skeeter.

"Oh dear," said Mr Malfoy, not sounding very upset. He didn't make any effort to pick it up.

Harry wasn't sure he wanted to look at it either, but both adults were now watching him. Mr Malfoy had an expression more of curiosity than expectancy, but Mrs Malfoy's face was closed off. Her expression was very blank.

_Read it_, said Voldemort sharply.

Harry was torn between horror and helpless curiosity. Gingerly, he reached for the paper.

"Are you sure you want to read that?" Draco asked, eyeing the pages as though they might leap up and devour Harry's hand. His voice came unexpectedly loud in the silence around the breakfast table.

"Uh," said Harry, who was certainly _not_ sure. "I think I'd better know," he said finally.

"Almost certainly," said Mrs Malfoy, following his hand with her cool eyes.

Draco shrugged and went back to his eggs.

The front page was a picture of Harry from the day before, shocky with dark circles under his eyes like bruises. Sweat had turned his hair spikier than usual, and the scar on his forehead stood out dark and clear against his pallid skin - and the black and white of the newspaper made it the contrast even worse.

The boy in the photo didn't move very much, blinking up out of the page. He looked hunted.

Probably because Skeeter had been right there, smiling like a shark.

"Am I really that skinny?" he said aloud, staring at the picture.

"Yes," said Draco.

Nobody else was impolite enough to comment, which was pretty much a comment in and of itself.

Harry's eyes skimmed the front page article.

"MR POTTER, better known as The Boy Who Lived, has come forward as a victim of the abuse at the hands of his muggle relatives."

_Skip that_, Voldemort said, sounding bored. _And that. Skip that - I said -_

_I know what you said_, Harry said. _But look. _He indicated one of several passages that were bothering him. "Mr Lucius Malfoy was quoted defending his young charge, saying 'It's unreasonable to expect an eleven year old to determine the appropriate use of wandless self-defensive magic.'" _I don't understand how she heard any of this. Was she listening at the door?_

Voldemort paused. The question was of academic interest to him for a moment, and he skipped through any number of possibilities: that St Mungo's privacy charms were bad, that Skeeter was good at countering good privacy charms, the Prophet bribed any one of the parties, Skeeter snuck a look at the healer's report, that Skeeter left a recording charm on an object in the room and returned to collect it, Skeeter found a way to remain in the room unseen...

"Mr Gawain Cuthbert of the Department of Communities and Social Welfare has been assigned as Mr Potter's case worker. Attempts by this reporter to contact Mr Cuthbert have been met with howlers and hexes. The Department of Communities and Social Welfare has released a statement..."

_Keep going,_ said Voldemort again, bored now of thinking about the many ways Rita Skeeter could have obtained her information. The Department's statement was largely about what a dedicated job they were doing, so Harry was happy to skip it. _Stop_, said Voldemort finally, when Harry's eyes landed on a new paragraph.

"Wizarding children left in muggle care can be particularly vulnerable to abuse as they are often misunderstood or neglected by their families. 'Some,' said a representative of the Conservative Wizarding Alliance, 'quickly fall through the gaps and become victims of muggle neglect, and occasionally persecution, which is usually a part of the bizarre religious beliefs of many muggles.'"

Harry frowned. The words 'religious beliefs,' 'muggles,' and 'persecution,' were all guaranteed to catch many older peoples' attention.

_They should,_ said Voldemort in a soft hiss. _Witches and wizards as a group have forgiven too much. There are men and women among us who can still smell the smoke of an auto de fe._

Bright flames, greasy black smoke and the scents of burning hair and rendering fat flashed through his mind unbidden. Harry could not tell if they were a product of his own imagination, or if they belonged to Voldemort in some way. He swallowed, feeling his heart beat kick into a higher gear.

He remembered vividly his feelings, that night in his cupboard, when Voldemort had asked, in a voice of bland academic interest:_ Tell me, do you know any fire proofing charms yet?_

Maybe Voldemort was right. He kept reading.

"Rights groups now say that the Ministry of Magic has failed to uphold the rights of the children of Wizarding Britain, with many left vulnerable to child labour, physical abuse and neglect. The Prophet now awaits the release of the Conservative Wizarding Alliance's report, which is expected to hit out at the Ministry's abysmal record in protecting muggle-born and muggle-raised children.

Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where Mr Potter is enrolled in his first year, has released a statement saying:

'This tragedy has only revealed the danger of the Wizarding World's continued blindness and disregard of Muggles. I have no doubt that the only cure to the attitudes among muggles that promote abuse and neglect, is in better communication, cooperation and education.'

"However, when representatives of the Prophet visited his office the Headmaster was curiously absent.

"Mr Potter is currently residing at the Malfoy residence in Wiltshire, and has requested that concerned well-wishers not try to contact him."

_I have?_ Harry wondered.

_Somebody has on your behalf_, said Voldemort.

Harry glanced at Mr Malfoy, but he was quietly interrogating Draco about his Charms homework. He looked quickly back down at the paper.

HARRY POTTER ABUSE CLAIMS, continued page 3, declared the front page.

He flipped and skimmed. "Starved... made to sleep in a cupboard, which locked from the outside..." He swallowed. "Medical records show head injuries and severe malnourishment..." His stomach turned.

He supposed Skeeter had seen his medical records.

_Does everybody really need to know this?_ He asked, eyeing a brief sentence relating to the frequency of starvation victims' bowel movements.

_You told them,_ Voldemort pointed out unsympathetically.

_There's speculation about how often I poop in the paper,_ said Harry blankly.

Voldemort ignored this. _Ah,_ he breathed, already distracted, indicating another linking article mentioned at the bottom of the page.

THE POTTER CASE: CAN MUGGLES BE TRIED UNDER WIZARDING LAW? EXPERTS EXPLAIN, page 8.

That sounded much more interesting, in theory, but when Harry flipped to page eight, he felt a hot surge of disappointment when he found that the response was an overwhelming no.

Voldemort made a hissing noise like a scalded cat. Harry sighed, folded the paper, and laid it back on the table. Mrs Malfoy took it up almost immediately. Harry hadn't realised she'd been waiting so eagerly.

He looked at his soup. He felt filled with a crushing nervous energy, which cramped his guts and precluded hunger. What was he going to do?

_We'll use it to our advantage,_ said Voldemort. _What else?_

* * *

Yes, okay, this chapter was about three and a half weeks in coming. And since my beta has real work to do it has been written, proof-read and edited by me, all on my own. There will probably be typos.

I did receive some questions and comments from anonymous or not-logged-in comrades, so I will answer them here:

Comrade KBradshaw said: "No holly and phoenix ? Waaaa?" Haha. A different boy needs a different wand, and the wand connection is not important to my story. I wanted to nip that red herring in the bud, because I don't like it. But, you know, it did say 'AU' on the summary.

The guest reviewer - Comrade Guest! - who pointed out sage leaves aren't hanging out in people's gardens in winter: I didn't even _notice_. Wow. If I ever get around to doing an edit of Hit The Ground Running, that's on the list of things to fix. Cheers. Have a biscuit.

There was another Comrade Guest (the same Comrade Guest as above? I don't know, it remains mysterious to me) who asked: 'Just one question is it going to be a Dark Harry story, I would really like it if its so. Secondaly is Dumbledore here is truly ignorant or a manipulative bastard as many fics tend to portray him.' - Well, I'm not absolutely certain what a story has to contain before it's a 'dark Harry' story. I assume this is a genre with certain specific characteristics, not all of which I am familiar with. I would be delighted to hear what people think are the necessary attributes of a 'dark Harry' story, which will help me answer this question.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand the second part regarding Dumbledore, but I can only say that I am trying to make him reasonable, and whether I succeed or not will have to be a matter of opinion.

Lastly, my own comment: People really _hated_ Rita! She's one of my favourite book characters. I love how much of an asshole she is. I like to imagine how her daily life goes, man, it'd be amazing. I imagine her preparing her to-do list before setting out for the day, sitting in her dressing gown and various magical hairdo-maker-things in a London apartment somewhere drinking her coffee and murmuring to her Quick-Quotes Quill: "Get mail, paint nails, ruin a politician's life, buy milk..." No? No takers? Oh, well.


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